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Telephone reminders improve adolescent clinic attendance: A randomized controlled trial by SM Sawyer; A Zalan; LM Bond is a Medicine article available to read on EtoBox.

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**Objectives**: To measure the effect of telephone reminders on adolescent clinic attendance. **Methods**: Clinic bookings of adolescents were randomly assigned to either a telephone reminder one day prior to their appointment, or a routine booking (no reminder). The setting was four general adolescent health clinics within a tertiary public adolescent health care service at the Centre for Adolescent Health. The main outcome measures were clinic non‐attendance, reason for non‐attendance, and satisfaction with the booking system. **Results**: One hundred and seventy one adolescent appointments were studied. Of these, 51.5% were female, and 25% of bookings were for new, rather than review appointments. One hundred and one adolescents were randomly allocated to the reminder group, of whom 87% were contacted. The use of reminders (intention to treat analysis) significantly reduced the non‐attendance rate from 20% to 8% (odds ratio 0.35; __P__ = 0.03). Non‐attendance was three times more likely for a new appointment than for review appointments. ‘Forgetting’ was the most common explanation given by patients (35%) who did not attend. Seventy‐nine per cent of parents reported telephone re

Who reads Telephone reminders improve adolescent clinic attendance: A randomized controlled trial?

Author

SM Sawyer; A Zalan; LM Bond

Publisher

Wiley

Published

2002

Language

EN

Field

Medicine (Health Sciences)