TY - JOUR
T1 - Text messaging interventions on cancer screening rates
T2 - A systematic review
AU - Uy, Catherine
AU - Lopez, Jennifer
AU - Trinh-Shevrin, Chau
AU - Kwon, Simona C.
AU - Sherman, Scott E.
AU - Liang, Peter S.
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank Joey Nicholson and Aileen McCrillis for assistance with the search strategy and Laura Wyatt for feedback on an early draft. This work is supported, in part, by the National Institutes of Health (National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities award number P60MD000538 and National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences award number UL1TR001445) and with resources and the use of facilities at the VA New York Harbor Manhattan Medical Center. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the funding agencies.
Publisher Copyright:
© Catherine Uy, Jennifer Lopez, Chau Trinh-Shevrin, Simona C Kwon, Scott E Sherman, Peter S Liang.
PY - 2017/8
Y1 - 2017/8
N2 - Background: Despite high-quality evidence demonstrating that screening reduces mortality from breast, cervical, colorectal, and lung cancers, a substantial portion of the population remains inadequately screened. There is a critical need to identify interventions that increase the uptake and adoption of evidence-based screening guidelines for preventable cancers at the community practice level. Text messaging (short message service, SMS) has been effective in promoting behavioral change in various clinical settings, but the overall impact and reach of text messaging interventions on cancer screening are unknown. Objective: The objective of this systematic review was to assess the effect of text messaging interventions on screening for breast, cervical, colorectal, and lung cancers. Methods: We searched multiple databases for studies published between the years 2000 and 2017, including PubMed, EMBASE, and the Cochrane Library, to identify controlled trials that measured the effect of text messaging on screening for breast, cervical, colorectal, or lung cancers. Study quality was evaluated using the Cochrane risk of bias tool. Results: Our search yielded 2238 citations, of which 31 underwent full review and 9 met inclusion criteria. Five studies examined screening for breast cancer, one for cervical cancer, and three for colorectal cancer. No studies were found for lung cancer screening. Absolute screening rates for individuals who received text message interventions were 0.6% to 15.0% higher than for controls. Unadjusted relative screening rates for text message recipients were 4% to 63% higher compared with controls. Conclusions: Text messaging interventions appear to moderately increase screening rates for breast and cervical cancer and may have a small effect on colorectal cancer screening. Benefit was observed in various countries, including resource-poor and non-English-speaking populations. Given the paucity of data, additional research is needed to better quantify the effectiveness of this promising intervention.
AB - Background: Despite high-quality evidence demonstrating that screening reduces mortality from breast, cervical, colorectal, and lung cancers, a substantial portion of the population remains inadequately screened. There is a critical need to identify interventions that increase the uptake and adoption of evidence-based screening guidelines for preventable cancers at the community practice level. Text messaging (short message service, SMS) has been effective in promoting behavioral change in various clinical settings, but the overall impact and reach of text messaging interventions on cancer screening are unknown. Objective: The objective of this systematic review was to assess the effect of text messaging interventions on screening for breast, cervical, colorectal, and lung cancers. Methods: We searched multiple databases for studies published between the years 2000 and 2017, including PubMed, EMBASE, and the Cochrane Library, to identify controlled trials that measured the effect of text messaging on screening for breast, cervical, colorectal, or lung cancers. Study quality was evaluated using the Cochrane risk of bias tool. Results: Our search yielded 2238 citations, of which 31 underwent full review and 9 met inclusion criteria. Five studies examined screening for breast cancer, one for cervical cancer, and three for colorectal cancer. No studies were found for lung cancer screening. Absolute screening rates for individuals who received text message interventions were 0.6% to 15.0% higher than for controls. Unadjusted relative screening rates for text message recipients were 4% to 63% higher compared with controls. Conclusions: Text messaging interventions appear to moderately increase screening rates for breast and cervical cancer and may have a small effect on colorectal cancer screening. Benefit was observed in various countries, including resource-poor and non-English-speaking populations. Given the paucity of data, additional research is needed to better quantify the effectiveness of this promising intervention.
KW - Breast neoplasms
KW - Colorectal neoplasms
KW - Early detection of cancer
KW - Lung neoplasms
KW - Mhealth
KW - Text messaging
KW - Uterine cervical neoplasms
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U2 - 10.2196/jmir.7893
DO - 10.2196/jmir.7893
M3 - Review article
C2 - 28838885
AN - SCOPUS:85029354690
SN - 1439-4456
VL - 19
JO - Journal of medical Internet research
JF - Journal of medical Internet research
IS - 8
M1 - e296
ER -