Reducing missed appointments in psychological therapy services
Research type
Research Study
Full title
A Randomised Controlled Trial to Measure the Impact of Behaviourally-Worded SMS Reminder Messages on Reducing Missed Appointments Among Improving Access to Psychological Therapy (IAPT) Patients
IRAS ID
227749
Contact name
Michael Hallsworth
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Behavioural Insights Limited
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 4 months, 1 days
Research summary
Background and aims
The NHS Improving Access to Psychological Therapy (IAPT) services experience a relatively high rate of missed appointments (roughly 11%). This imposes a cost on the services and increases waiting times for others.
This project will test whether changes to the content of SMS reminders sent to IAPT patients in advance of their appointments can reduce missed appointments. More specifically two different messages will be tested against the existing business as usual reminder message;
1. Implementation plans - Prompting patients to make a plan to help them attend their appointment.
2. Reciprocity - Personalised message from a therapist letting the patient know their appointment is booked for them.
The primary outcomes will be the missed appointment rate and completion of treatment.
If the behavioural messages reduced missed appointments and increase completion of treatment, the secondary analysis will measure whether mental health outcomes are improved among these patients.
Trial details
Participants in this trial will be patients of one of the three participating IAPT services who have an appointment during the trial period. All IAPT patients are adults.
Patients will only be eligible to receive the new messages if they consented to receive SMS communication from their IAPT service.
Participating patients will be allocated at random into one of the three trial arms - the existing business as usual SMS reminders or one of the two behavioural SMS reminders. Patients will receive SMS appointment reminders based on the arm they were allocated to. The number of messages received will be the the same in all three arms.
Risks
The primary risk is that the new messages have the opposite effect and increase missed appointments. The messages have been specifically worded to minimise this risk.
Locations and timeline
The study will be run at three participating NHS IAPT providers and will run for approximately 4 months from March 2018.
REC name
Yorkshire & The Humber - Bradford Leeds Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
18/YH/0092
Date of REC Opinion
6 Mar 2018
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion