Satisfaction of healthy pregnant women receiving short message service via mobile phone for prenatal support: A randomized controlled trial. Can wireless text messaging improve adherence to preventive activities? Results of a randomised controlled trial. Use of text messaging for monitoring sugar-sweetened beverages, physical activity, and screen time in children: a pilot study.
The main objective was to compare the satisfaction levels of antenatal care between healthy pregnant women who received short message service (SMS) via mobile phone for prenatal support, and those who did not. The second objective was to compare the confidence, anxiety levels and also pregnancy outcomes.
                A randomized controlled trial.
                68 healthy pregnant women who attended the antenatal clinic and delivered at Siriraj Hospital, who met the inclusion criterias between May 2007 and October 2007, were enrolled and randomly allocated into two random groups. The study group received two SMS messages per week from 28 weeks of gestation until giving birth. The other group was pregnant women who did not receive SMS. Both groups had the same antenatal and perinatal care. The satisfaction, confidence and anxiety scores were evaluated using a questionnaire at the postpartum ward. The pregnancy outcomes were also compared in these two groups.
                The satisfaction levels of the women who received prenatal support in SMS messages, were significantly higher than those of who did not receive the messages both in the antenatal period (9.25 vs. 8.00, p < 0.001) and during labor (9.09 vs. 7.90, p = 0.007). In the SMS using group, the confidence level was'higher (8.91 vs. 7.79, p = 0.001) and the anxiety level was lower (2.78 vs. 4.93, p = 0.002) than the control group n the antenatal period, however no diference in pregnancy outcomes were found.
                The present study shows the higher satisfaction level of pregnant women who received SMS via mobile phone during their antenatal service when compared with the general antenatal care group. The study also show the higher confidence level and lower anxiety level in the antenatal period but no difference in pregnancy outcomes. To determine the effectiveness of cell phone wireless text messaging for improving adherence to a healthy behaviour.
                A randomised, unblinded, controlled trial was conducted with 102 subjects, 18 years or older, each having a cell phone and willing to take 1 vitamin C pill per day for 1 month for preventive reasons. Intervention group participants received text messaging reminders and were asked to acknowledge receiving their messages after taking the vitamins, whereas control group subjects had no text messaging activity.
                Self-reported adherence and the number of participant text messages acknowledging vitamins taken.
                Both groups reported an increased adherence after the trial: by 246% for the intervention group and by 131% for the control group. There was a non-significant difference between the two groups at endpoint: an average difference of 0.8 between the number of pills missed in the last week of the trial (2.5 out of 7 in the intervention and 3.3 out of 7 in the control group) with a power of 0.54. The study revealed a significant correlation (coefficient=-0.352, sig.=0.01) between the average number of text messaging acknowledgements sent by the intervention group participants and the number of pills they reported missed during the last week of the trial.
                This was a small randomised controlled trial with inconclusive but encouraging results. It suggests a new approach in addressing insufficient adherence in outpatient conditions and shows that the use of information technology tools for compliance warrants further research. To examine acceptability, attrition, adherence, and preliminary efficacy of mobile phone short message service (SMS; text messaging) for monitoring healthful behaviors in children.
                All randomized children received a brief psychoeducational intervention. They then either monitored target behaviors via SMS with feedback or via paper diaries (PD) or participated in a no-monitoring control (C) for 8 weeks.
                University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
                Fifty-eight children (age 5-13) and parents participated; 31 completed (SMS: 13/18, PD: 7/18, C: 11/22).
                Children and parents participated in a total of 3 group education sessions (1 session weekly for 3 weeks) to encourage increasing physical activity and decreasing screen time and sugar-sweetened beverage consumption.
                Treatment acceptability, attrition, and adherence to self-monitoring.
                Descriptive statistics and nonparametric tests were used to analyze differences across time and group.
                Children in SMS had somewhat lower attrition (28%) than both PD (61%) and C (50%), and significantly greater adherence to self-monitoring than PD (43% vs 19%, P < .02).
                Short message service may be a useful tool for self-monitoring healthful behaviors in children, although the efficacy of this approach needs further study. Implications suggest that novel technologies may play a role in improving health.
We found very limited evidence that in certain cases mobile phone messaging interventions may support preventive health care, to improve health status and health behaviour outcomes. However, because of the low number of participants in three of the included studies, combined with study limitations of risk of bias and lack of demonstrated causality, the evidence for these effects is of low to moderate quality. The evidence is of high quality only for interventions aimed at smoking cessation. Furthermore, there are significant information gaps regarding the long-term effects, risks and limitations of, and user satisfaction with, such interventions.