SMS-text messaging for collecting outcome measures after acute stroke

Area of Science:

• Neurology
• Health Informatics
• Clinical Trials

Background:

• Traditional methods for collecting patient outcomes post-acute stroke are resource-intensive.
• There is a need for efficient and reliable methods to gather data on stroke recovery.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the feasibility, reliability, cost-effectiveness, and patient acceptability of using a short message service (SMS)-text messaging program for collecting outcomes after acute stroke.
• To compare SMS-text data collection with traditional follow-up methods.

Main Methods:

• Patients discharged after acute stroke were enrolled in an SMS-text messaging program.
• Participants completed assessments (modified Rankin Scale, PROM) via SMS-text at 30, 60, and 90 days post-discharge.
• SMS-text data collection was compared to traditional phone or in-clinic follow-up for agreement and cost. Patient satisfaction was surveyed.

Main Results:

• 40.5% of patients responded to SMS assessments; responders had characteristics associated with better recovery.
• SMS-text data showed almost perfect agreement with traditional methods for modified Rankin Scale scores (κ=0.8).
• SMS-text data collection was found to be less costly than phone follow-up for larger patient cohorts and was deemed acceptable and helpful by most participants.

Conclusions:

• SMS-text messaging is a feasible, reliable, low-cost, and acceptable method for collecting post-stroke outcomes.
• This approach can be used at scale to evaluate the efficacy of acute stroke treatments.
• Reliability for functional outcomes via SMS was higher than for patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs).