Using short message services in mental health services: assessing feasibility

On average, the National Health Service (NHS) loses annually is not an element of 360 million in opportunity costs due to non-attendance of outpatient appointments (Stone et al, 1999). In addition to draining healthcare resources, failure to attend clinical appointments incurs personal costs. Mobile phone technology has been applied successfully to reducing appointment non-attendance and improving clinical outcomes for patients with physical illnesses. However, it is unclear whether these applications can be extended to patients with severe and enduring mental disorders. We conducted a trust-wide survey of 141 psychiatric inpatients of the Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust (82% of the Trust's total inpatient population) to establish how many respondents owned a mobile phone (62%), could use text-messaging services (62%) and were willing to use the latter as a means of communication with the Trust (80%). Compared to patients with psychotic illnesses, those with non-psychotic illnesses reported higher rates of mobile phone ownership (78% versus 55%, p=0.01), ability to use text messaging (76% versus 56%, p=0.03) and willingness to receive text messages from the Trust (90% versus 76%, p=0.05). The results of the survey were used to inform the planning of a pilot study aimed at reducing non-attendance rates of outpatient appointments in Oxleas.