Evaluation of Email-based Reminders in Promoting Adherence to the Recommended Pediatric Preventative-visit Schedule Among Rural Patients

Regular attendance at recommended WCC visits is associated with having up-to-date immunizations. Standard care involves scheduling a follow-up WCC visit at the end of the current visit. However, if the child's parents do not choose to schedule a follow-up visit at that time or miss a WCC visit, they may not be offered another easy opportunity to schedule one. That is, they would have to remember to schedule a visit and contact the clinic proactively.

In this study, 30 days before a child is due for their WCC visit, parents who have not yet scheduled a WCC visit for up to 30 days (for 5-month-olds) or 60 days (for all other ages) after their child is due for a visit will be randomly assigned to two groups with a random number generator. One group will receive an email reminder, while the other group will not receive any reminder.

The randomization of participants to different conditions will be in place until 800 participants have been identified and randomly assigned to one of the arms (estimated sample to detect at least a 10% absolute difference) or 180 days, whichever comes first. To account for delays in updating clinical databases, the final outcome data will be checked 90 days after the last eligible visit (for a maximum study period of 270 days).