Objectives: The aims of the study are to determine whether mobile phone message reminders will improve adherence to scheduled ocular examinations amongst diabetic patients attending the eye clinic in Jos University Teaching Hospital, with a view to recommending intervention to prevent blindness. Materials and Methods: It was a comparative hospital-based trial, with patients grouped in a 1:2 ratio with one group receiving short message service (SMS) reminders about their next appointment and the other not receiving an SMS. 164 consecutive patients were recruited. This was calculated using the attendance rate obtained from a similar study done in China and imputing it into a formula comparing two proportions. All recruited patients received a health talk about diabetes and how it affects the eye and the importance of adherence to eye clinic appointments. A semi-structured questionnaire was administered to determine their knowledge about DR. A full ophthalmic examination and dilated funduscopy were carried out on participants who attended the eye clinic. Results: One hundred and sixty-four participants were invited to participate in the study. There were 132 female participants and 32 males. The mean age of study participants was 53.9 ± 11.9 years. The overall eye clinic attendance rate was 55%. Only 24 (44.4%) of participants in the SMS group honoured the eye clinic invitation; 30 (55.6%) did not attend. While 66 participants (60%) in the non-SMS group attended the eye clinic appointment. This finding was not statistically significant. SMS was not effective as a reminder for diabetic patients to attend the eye clinic in this study. Barriers associated with poor clinic attendance were travel and other competing needs. Factors associated with poor eye clinic attendance were low awareness about DR (odds ratio OR: 9.818, 95% confidence interval CI: 1.953–49.351), age <50 years (OR: 9.00, 95% CI: 2.649–30.588) and low literacy levels (OR: 7.99, 95% CI: 2.018–31.640). Knowledge about diabetes, DR and treatment options improved at the eye clinic visit when compared to the first general outpatient department visit following health talks. Conclusion: The findings of this study suggest that use of SMS messages alone is not an effective way of enhancing by adequate knowledge about diabetic retinopathy.
Maigida et al. (Wed,) studied this question.