Using Text Messages to Save Your Life

In rural east Africa, regular text messages were sent to patients reminding them to take their medication to increase treatment adherence.

Challenge 

Although antiretroviral therapy (ART) has significantly reduced morbidity and mortality, adherence to treatment remains a pressing challenge. In Africa, patient adherence has been found to decline over time, which increases risks for treatment failure. When initial treatment fails, second-line therapy can be costly, or at times, unavailable. SMS messaging offers a feasible, cost-effective approach to increasing adherence in geographically dispersed and resource-limited settings.

 Insights

We partnered with a rural health center in east Africa and assigned a subset of patients who had started ART within the past 3 months to receiving reminder text messages to take their medication. Over 48 weeks, reminders were either sent daily or weekly, and were either short and simple or long and including additional social support. 

Impact

Patient adherence to medication increased by 12 percentage points through the implementation of weekly SMS reminders. Text Messages can nudge you to Save Your Life!