Comparison between data obtained through real-time data capture by SMS and a retrospective telephone interview

Area of Science:

• Health Informatics
• Clinical Research Methodology
• Patient-Reported Outcomes

Background:

• Assessing the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of Short Message Service (SMS) for patient monitoring.
• Evaluating patient acceptance of SMS-based data collection in clinical studies.

Purpose of the Study:

• Quantitatively compare SMS data with telephone interview data.
• Investigate patient acceptability of weekly SMS questions.
• Explore acceptability of an additional weekly SMS question.
• Calculate the total cost of using SMS technology for data collection.

Main Methods:

• Weekly SMS monitoring of 260 low back pain (LBP) patients over 53 weeks.
• Telephone interviews with 31 patients for 1-week, 1-month, and 1-year recall comparison.
• Assessment of patient willingness to answer a third SMS question.
• Cost analysis comparing SMS-T-Q with paper surveys.

Main Results:

• High agreement between SMS and telephone responses for 1-week and 1-month recall periods.
• Low agreement for 1-year recall.
• High patient acceptability for a third weekly SMS question.
• SMS system demonstrated lower costs than paper surveys above a threshold.

Conclusions:

• SMS-T-Q is a cost-effective and reliable method for collecting LBP data compared to paper surveys.
• SMS technology offers a viable alternative for longitudinal patient monitoring.