The effectiveness of SMS Reminders and the impact of patient characteristics on missed appointments in a public dental outpatient clinic

Abstract

This paper reports on the Failure To Attend (FTA) rate of appointments as well as patients following the implementation of SMS reminders in a public dental outpatient service. Given the ineffectiveness of the intervention and a highly representative patient's profile, this paper identifies the demographic characteristics of patients who miss all of their appointments. Data on appointment attendance, patient demographics and dental service type was collected over a time period of 46 consecutive months. Using descriptive and inferential statistics (chi-square, two sample tests and Marascuilo procedure) we found the SMS intervention was ineffective in reducing the FTA rates. Further, patients a..