Effectiveness of Sending Sms Text Messages to Mobile Phone Patients to Remind Upcoming Appointments and Improve the Control of Diabetic Patients in Primary Care

Introduction: The Spanish Society of Family and Community Medicine, started the Program of Preventive Activities and Health Promotion, which generates periodic recommendations of preventive methods based on scientific evidence. In the last update it has become evident the need of modifications to adapt the program to modern times and focuses on improving accessibility and offering more flexible responses to users of the program. In this sense, the mobile phone technology could be useful, specifically the messaging service to remind patients their appointments and increase attendance rates. Main objective Compare the percentage of patients in the intervention group compared with the control group who achieved a figure of HbA1c <7% in 2013.Design: single blind Randomized Clinical Trial. Study population: Patients with diabetes with or without hypertension or lipid metabolism disorder, over 18 years, belonging to the Public Health System of Basque Country (primary care) meeting the inclusion / exclusion criteria. Sample size: 238 patients (119 per arm) to detect a difference of 16% in the percentage of patients with HbA1c lower than 7% between groups: Short Messages Standard (SMS) group: Mobile messages reminding the next review of Papps. Control group: Routine clinical practice. Statistical analysis: The relationship between the intervention received and the main variable (compliance with preventive activities at 12 months) were analyzed using a logistic regression model.