Thalassemic Patient Satisfaction on Receiving Medical Information through Short Message System on Mobile Phone

Objective: Patient satisfaction is an important and widely accepted concept in medical adherence. Education as an efficient way may enhance patient satisfaction which could help the patient to feel more relaxed. A convenient educating technology is mobile-phone short message service (SMS). This study aimed at investigating the thalassemic patient’s satisfaction on receiving medical information by SMS on mobile phones.

Materials and Methods: The research population included 160 β thalassemic patients attending the Thalassemia ward of Boali hospital, Sari, during autumn 2011. Eighty eight patients fulfilling the criteria of selection were incorporated in the study. A researcher-made questionnaire was used to evaluate patient satisfaction. Afterwards, each patient was assigned to receive 30 informative SMS during three months (average of three SMS per week).

Results: The mean of patient satisfaction on receiving medical information through SMS was 0.87, which was found through Binomial test at Sig.level=0. Wilcoxon signed rank test showed no significant difference on other influencing factors of patient satisfaction (Satisfaction with the quality of training data, environmental and educational facilities, medical staff) pre- and post-intervention regarding (sign=0.6, W=0.519).

Conclusion: the most participants of this study were satisfied with the new educating technology(78%), however, this method was not efficient regarding other influencing factors of this study such as Satisfaction with the quality of training data, environmental and educational facilities, medical staff (14.8% were satisfied pre- and post-intervention and 85% had no specific idea post-intervention). So, using short message service technology on mobile phone could be effective way in conveying information to the patients.

Keywords: Thalassemic Patient, Education, Short Message Service, Satisfaction.

Posted by: maedeh masoudinezhad, expert of information technology, medical science university of mazandran, Iran (12-Jan-2013)