Cost
The direct program costs of promoting, delivering, and staff monitoring of EMPOWER-SMS COVID-19 to 841 participants was Aus $12,948.87 or Aus $15.40 per participant. Costs included social media (Aus $2853.31) and radio (Aus $2500) advertising, direct SMS text message costs (Aus $3387.52), and purchasing of automated SMS text message delivery software (Aus $1287). The estimated costs for staff to monitor incoming SMS text messages and send minimal replies (approximately 75 minutes per week for 54 weeks; 67.5 hours of work) were Aus $2921.04 based on a base salary of Aus $78,760 or Aus $43.27 per hour. In total, staff members sent 14 SMS text message replies, responding to direct questions about the study (4/14, 29%), general health questions where participants were directed to speak to their health care professional (4/14, 29%), confirming other requests (5/14, 36%), or requesting to receive the program again (1/14, 7%). Importantly, there were no urgent SMS text messages relating to safety or health-related issues.