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Long-term adherence to medication regimens for chronic disease management is about 50%. Small studies have shown improvements in adherence when mobile telephone text messaging was used for reminders and education. For this meta-analysis, researchers evaluated 16 randomized, controlled trials (2742 patients; median age, 39) that employed text messaging to provide medication reminders for a range of chronic disease (e.g., coronary artery disease, asthma, allergic rhinitis, epilepsy). Five studies provided personalized messages, eight involved two-way communication, and eight sent daily reminders; the median trial duration was 12 weeks, and adherence was measured mostly by self-report.
The pooled analysis showed that text messaging increased th…