November 11, 2009

Study: texting boosts compliance among teens

Posted on Mon, Nov 09, 2009 – 02:45 pm

Adolescent nonadherence has presented a major challenge to healthcare professionals in transplantation and other medical fields, who for years have tried to address the issue with little success. But researchers at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York recently published the results of a study showing that text messaging could make a big difference in the rate of adherence among young liver transplant patients.

Using a program called CareSpeak, the researchers issued text messages to a group of 41 pediatric liver transplant patients, according to a New York Times report. The text messages prompted the patients to take their medications, which ranged from one to three different pills once or twice a day.