“Do not forget your appointment : gender differences in medical appointment attendance and the effect of SMS reminders”
Literature identifies errors in writing down, forgetting, last-minute impediments, financial problems, and fear of pain as main reasons of no show to medical appointments; and shows a positive effect of SMS reminders on medical appointment attendance. With both observational data and experiments, literature concludes that the effect of SMS reminders on attendance is consistent across patient subgroups. However, previous studies tend to use limited samples or to be conducted on limited scales (e.g., specialized establishments with one main medical field). Using large-scale observational data, consisting of more than 400,000 appointments at a general hospital, this research investigates gender differences in medical appointment attendance and the effect of SMS reminders.