Texting as effective as calling for encouraging COVID vaccine uptakeAutomated text messages were as effective as direct phone calls in encouraging study participants to get the COVID-19 vaccine, according to a JAMA Network Open study yesterday from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania,.The randomized control trial was conducted from Apr 29 and Jul 6, 2021, in Philadelphia and included 16,000 participants who were separated into three groups: one receiving phone calls from the health system to set up a vaccine appointment, another receiving an automated text later followed up by a phone call, and the last receiving only an automated text asking particiants to call for an appointment.The primary outcome was the proportion of patients who completed the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine within 1 month of the outreach.
The proportion of patients who then received vaccines in these three groups was 3.6%, 3.1%, and 3.3%, respectively."The take-away is that the text arms of our study were comparable to the phone-only arm, but the text messaging is less resource-intensive since a live call center only needs to talk to those who are already interested instead of making cold calls to everyone on the list," said Shivan Mehta, MD, MBA, MSHP, of Penn Medicine, the lead study author, in a University of Pennsylvania press release.Text messages and phone calls were also more likely to reach participants who did not have an email address, the authors said.
They also noted that the overall response rate to text messages and direct calls was low, but there was no control group of people who did not receive an intervention. Jun 13 JAMA Netw Open study Jun 13 University of Pennsylvania press releaseTwo measles