Disha Kumar, Vagish Hemmige, Michael A Kallen, Richard L Street, Thomas P Giordano, Monisha Arya
{"title":"The Role of Text Messages in Patient-Physician Communication about the Influenza Vaccine.","authors":"Disha Kumar, Vagish Hemmige, Michael A Kallen, Richard L Street, Thomas P Giordano, Monisha Arya","doi":"10.7309/jmtm.7.2.8","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Racial and ethnic minorities face disparities in receiving the influenza vaccination. A text message intervention could deliver personalized and timely messages to counsel patients on asking their physician for the vaccination.</p><p><strong>Aims: </strong>We assessed whether patients would be receptive to influenza vaccination text messages.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>Participants were recruited from a sample of low-income, racial and ethnic minority primary care patients. Participants completed a self-administered survey. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>There were 274 patients who participated and answered the questions of interest, of whom 70% were racial and ethnic minorities and 85% owned a cell phone. Thirty-six percent reported they had never received an influenza vaccination recommendation from their physician. However, 84% would be comfortable asking their physician for the influenza vaccination. Of cell phone-owning participants who would be comfortable asking their physician about the influenza vaccination, 80% would also be comfortable receiving a text message reminder.</p><p><strong>Conclusion: </strong>Text messages may be an acceptable channel to prompt patients to discuss the annual influenza vaccination with their physicians. Text messaging is a feasible tool to engage patients in their health and improve annual influenza vaccination rates among low-income, racial and ethnic minority patients.</p>","PeriodicalId":87305,"journal":{"name":"Journal of mobile technology in medicine","volume":"7 2","pages":"55-59"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2018-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6347375/pdf/nihms-1004356.pdf","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of mobile technology in medicine","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.7309/jmtm.7.2.8","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Background: Racial and ethnic minorities face disparities in receiving the influenza vaccination. A text message intervention could deliver personalized and timely messages to counsel patients on asking their physician for the vaccination.
Aims: We assessed whether patients would be receptive to influenza vaccination text messages.
Methods: Participants were recruited from a sample of low-income, racial and ethnic minority primary care patients. Participants completed a self-administered survey. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data.
Results: There were 274 patients who participated and answered the questions of interest, of whom 70% were racial and ethnic minorities and 85% owned a cell phone. Thirty-six percent reported they had never received an influenza vaccination recommendation from their physician. However, 84% would be comfortable asking their physician for the influenza vaccination. Of cell phone-owning participants who would be comfortable asking their physician about the influenza vaccination, 80% would also be comfortable receiving a text message reminder.
Conclusion: Text messages may be an acceptable channel to prompt patients to discuss the annual influenza vaccination with their physicians. Text messaging is a feasible tool to engage patients in their health and improve annual influenza vaccination rates among low-income, racial and ethnic minority patients.