Text Messaging Reminders for Influenza Vaccine in Primary Care

NCT01892631 | Completed

• 1 other identifier: txt4flujab
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 156
• Locations: 1 country
• Sites: 1

Brief Summary

Influenza morbidity and mortality cause a substantial financial burden to the NHS and to the UK as a whole. Influenza vaccine is safe and effective but is required annually because the circulating strain of virus changes each year. In the UK in 2012, the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) recommended that at least 75% of elderly people (aged 65+) and 75% people under 65 with certain chronic conditions (e.g. chronic heart disease, diabetes, asthma, etc) should be vaccinated. While primary care practices are achieving these targets for elderly patients, those set for younger patients with chronic conditions are not being met, with a third of patients being missed in the 2011/12 flu season and with no substantial improvements in uptake in the past decade. Therefore strategies to increase flu vaccine uptake in these patients are required. Previous trials have shown that patient reminders can increase vaccine uptake and in particular, text messaging has shown to work in some populations in the United States as a cheap, simple and effective reminder. However, whether the same is true in UK general practice is unclear. The use of text messaging in the NHS for appointment reminders is also increasing as it is cheap, quick and effective. Text messaging is already used in roughly 30% of practices to remind patients about their flu vaccine but there has been no trial addressing its effectiveness. Therefore, we propose a trial of a text messaging flu vaccine reminder in patients aged under 65 who have a chronic condition. We hypothesise that practices that send a text message will have increased flu vaccine uptake.

Conditions

Influenza

Keywords

Text messaging

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (1)

• Proportion of patients at risk who received flu vaccine

  up to 9 months

Secondary Outcomes (4)

• Proportion of practices reporting 'yes' to difficulties

  up to 3 months

• Recruitment rate

  3 months after initial contact

• Practice delivery of text message

  One month after study start (October 1st 2013)

• Were outcome data available

  up to 9 months

Study Arms (2)

Standard care

OTHER

Practices in the standard care arm will proceed with their seasonal influenza campaign as planned.

Other: Standard care

Text messaging intervention

EXPERIMENTAL

Practices in the text messaging intervention arm will be asked to send a text message to patients under 65 at risk of influenza.

Other: Text message influenza vaccination reminder

Interventions

Text message influenza vaccination reminder OTHER

Practices in the text messaging intervention arm will be asked to send a text message to patients under 65 at risk of influenza.

Text messaging intervention

Standard care OTHER

Practices in the standard care arm will be asked to proceed with their seasonal influenza campaign as planned.

Standard care

Eligibility Criteria

• Age: 18 Years - 64 Years
• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: No
• Age Groups: Adult (18-64)

You may qualify if:

• practices must use text messaging software to communicate with patients;
• practices must not have used a text message to remind patients aged under 65 about influenza vaccine in the 2012/13 influenza season.
• practices will send the text message to eligible patients who are aged between 18 and 65, with one of the following risk conditions: chronic respiratory disease, chronic liver disease, chronic kidney disease, chronic heart disease, chronic neurological disease, immunosuppression

You may not qualify if:

• practices will not send the text message to pregnant women.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine: lead
• Wellcome Trust: collaborator
• National Health Service, United Kingdom: collaborator

Study Sites (1)

London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

London, Select County, WC1E 7HT, United Kingdom

Location

MeSH Terms

Conditions

Influenza, Human

Interventions

Standard of Care

Condition Hierarchy (Ancestors)

Respiratory Tract Infections; Infections; Orthomyxoviridae Infections; RNA Virus Infections; Virus Diseases; Respiratory Tract Diseases

Intervention Hierarchy (Ancestors)

Quality Indicators, Health Care; Quality of Health Care; Health Services Administration; Health Care Quality, Access, and Evaluation

Study Design

• Study Type: interventional
• Phase: not applicable
• Allocation: RANDOMIZED
• Masking: NONE
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Sponsor Type: OTHER
• Responsible Party: SPONSOR

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: June 13, 2013
• First Posted: July 4, 2013
• Study Start: September 1, 2013
• Primary Completion: December 1, 2015
• Study Completion: December 1, 2015
• Last Updated: October 24, 2016

Record last verified: 2015-12

Locations

GB (1)