Disseminating text messages may help increase mammogram success rates

According to a study published online May 6 in JAMA Internal Medicine.

Shivan J. Mehta, MD, of the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and colleagues conducted two concurrent trials involving women ages 40 to 74 who had at least one primary care visit during of the last two years. In Trial A, women were randomly assigned to receive a signed bulk order for a mammogram or no order; patients were simultaneously assigned to receive or not receive SMS reminders.

In Trial B, women were randomly assigned to receive a message signed by their primary care clinician (clinician approval) or organization (standard messaging) and were simultaneously assigned to receive or not receive reminders by SMS.

A total of 24,632 women were included in the trials. The researchers found that after three months, there was a significant increase in the percentage of patients who completed a mammogram in the bulk order group (15.4 versus 12.7%) in Trial A. There There was also a significant increase in the number of completed mammograms in the text messaging group. (15.1 versus 13.0 percent).

At three months in Trial B, mammogram completion was not significantly different in the clinician-approved arm compared to the standard messaging arm (12.5 and 11.4 percent, respectively). A significant difference was observed in the text messaging arm compared to the no text messaging arm (13.2 versus 10.7 percent).

“Large-scale campaigns can be improved with new insights from behavioral sciences and information technologies,” the authors write.

One author revealed financial ties to Guardant Health.