Telephone reminders improve adolescent clinic attendance: A randomized controlled trial

Objectives : To measure the effect of telephone reminders on adolescent clinic attendance. Methods : Clinic bookings of adolescents were randomly assigned to either a telephone reminder one day prior to their appointment, or a routine booking (no reminder). The setting was four general adolescent health clinics within a tertiary public adolescent health care service at the Centre for Adolescent Health. The main outcome measures were clinic non‐attendance, reason for non‐attendance, and satisfaction with the booking system. Results : One hundred and seventy one adolescent appointments were studied. Of these, 51.5% were female, and 25% of bookings were for new, rather than review appointments. One hundred and one adolescents were randomly allocated to the reminder group, of whom 87% were contacted. The use of reminders (intention to treat analysis) significantly reduced the non‐attendance rate from 20% to 8% (odds ratio 0.35; P = 0.03). Non‐attendance was three times more likely for a new appointment than for review appointments. ‘Forgetting’ was the most common explanation given by patients (35%) who did not attend. Seventy‐nine per cent of parents reported telephone reminders were helpful at prompting attendance. Conclusion : Telephone reminders greatly improved attendance at these adolescent clinics. The background non‐attendance rate and the proportion of high‐risk patients for non‐attendance (new appointments in this setting) will determine whether reminders are more efficiently targeted at specific bookings than used routinely.