Effectiveness of Text Message Reminder for Improving Compliance to Tuberculosis Drug Consumption: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Background: Compliance in consumes tuberculosis drugs is needed to reduce the drop out rate or discontinuation of the drug. Text messages sent to tuberculosis patients are an alternative reminder for patients to take medication. This study aims to systematically review the effectiveness of text message reminders to improve compliance with tuberculosis drug consumption. Subjects and Methods: A systematic review was conducted by searching for articles from 2 databases, namely PubMed and ProQuest. The keywords were "effectiveness", "tuberculosis", "adherence", and "reminder". The inclusion criteria were Randomized Controlled Trials (RCT) study or quasi-experimental study with or without a control group. The articles were selected by PRISMA flow diagram method. Results: From the 10 articles collected, those reported that text messages reminders influenced patients to take medication. Five articles reported a significant increase in patient adherence to taking medication using text messages reminder than without text messages reminder (p <0.010). Effective interventions to improve tuberculosis patient compliance in taking drugs are based on text messages obtained so that effective TB management is needed to increase the level of compliance in tuberculosis treatment completely. Conclusion: Text messaging is appropriate to be used as a reminder to improve compliance in taking tuberculosis medication but the need for good TB management for health care providers to reduce complete non-compliance with drugs.