Abstract：
OBJECTIVE: Patients frequently miss their medical appointments. Therefore, short message service (SMS) has been used as a strategy for medical and healthcare service appointment reminders. This systematic review aimed to identify barriers to SMS appointment reminders across African regions.
METHODS: PubMed, Google Scholar, Semantic Scholar and Web of Science were used for searching, and hand searching was done. Original studies written in English, conducted in Africa, and published since 1 December 2018, were included. The standard quality assessment checklist was used for the quality appraisal of the included studies. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses flowchart diagram was used for study selection and screening, and any disagreements were resolved via discussions.
RESULTS: A total of 955 articles were searched, 521 studies were removed due to duplication and 105 studies were assessed for eligibility. Consequently, nine studies met the inclusion criteria. Five out of nine included studies were done by randomised control trials. The barriers that hampered patients, mothers and other parental figures of children when they were notified via SMS of medical and health services were identified. Among the 11 identified barriers, illiteracy, issues of confidentiality, familiarised text messages, inadequate information communication technology infrastructure, being a rural resident and loss of mobile phones occurred in at least two studies.
CONCLUSIONS: SMS is an effective and widely accepted appointment reminder tool. However, it is hampered by numerous barriers. Hence, we gathered summarised information about users\' barriers to SMS-based appointment reminders. Therefore, stakeholders should address existing identified barriers for better Mhealth interventions.
UNASSIGNED: CRD42022296559.
METHODS: PubMed, Google Scholar, Semantic Scholar and Web of Science were used for searching, and hand searching was done. Original studies written in English, conducted in Africa, and published since 1 December 2018, were included. The standard quality assessment checklist was used for the quality appraisal of the included studies. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses flowchart diagram was used for study selection and screening, and any disagreements were resolved via discussions.
RESULTS: A total of 955 articles were searched, 521 studies were removed due to duplication and 105 studies were assessed for eligibility. Consequently, nine studies met the inclusion criteria. Five out of nine included studies were done by randomised control trials. The barriers that hampered patients, mothers and other parental figures of children when they were notified via SMS of medical and health services were identified. Among the 11 identified barriers, illiteracy, issues of confidentiality, familiarised text messages, inadequate information communication technology infrastructure, being a rural resident and loss of mobile phones occurred in at least two studies.
CONCLUSIONS: SMS is an effective and widely accepted appointment reminder tool. However, it is hampered by numerous barriers. Hence, we gathered summarised information about users\' barriers to SMS-based appointment reminders. Therefore, stakeholders should address existing identified barriers for better Mhealth interventions.
UNASSIGNED: CRD42022296559.
摘要：
目标：患者经常错过医疗预约。因此,短消息服务(SMS)已被用作医疗和保健服务预约提醒的策略。这项系统的审查旨在确定非洲地区短信预约提醒的障碍。
方法：PubMed，谷歌学者，语义学者和WebofScience被用于搜索，手工搜索完成了。用英语写的原始研究，在非洲进行，自2018年12月1日起发布，包括在内。采用标准质量评价清单对纳入研究进行质量评价。系统评价和荟萃分析的首选报告项目流程图用于研究选择和筛选，任何分歧都通过讨论解决。
结果：共检索到955篇文章，由于重复，521项研究被删除，105项研究被评估为合格。因此,9项研究符合纳入标准.9项纳入研究中有5项是通过随机对照试验完成的。阻碍病人的障碍，确定了通过SMS通知医疗和保健服务的母亲和其他儿童父母的形象。在确定的11个障碍中，文盲,保密问题,熟悉的短信，信息通信技术基础设施不足，至少有两项研究发生了作为农村居民和手机丢失的情况。
结论：SMS是一种有效且被广泛接受的预约提醒工具。然而,它受到许多障碍的阻碍。因此，我们收集了有关基于SMS的预约提醒的用户障碍的汇总信息。因此,利益相关者应解决现有的已确定的障碍，以更好地干预Mhealth。
未经评估：CRD42022296559。
方法：PubMed，谷歌学者，语义学者和WebofScience被用于搜索，手工搜索完成了。用英语写的原始研究，在非洲进行，自2018年12月1日起发布，包括在内。采用标准质量评价清单对纳入研究进行质量评价。系统评价和荟萃分析的首选报告项目流程图用于研究选择和筛选，任何分歧都通过讨论解决。
结果：共检索到955篇文章，由于重复，521项研究被删除，105项研究被评估为合格。因此,9项研究符合纳入标准.9项纳入研究中有5项是通过随机对照试验完成的。阻碍病人的障碍，确定了通过SMS通知医疗和保健服务的母亲和其他儿童父母的形象。在确定的11个障碍中，文盲,保密问题,熟悉的短信，信息通信技术基础设施不足，至少有两项研究发生了作为农村居民和手机丢失的情况。
结论：SMS是一种有效且被广泛接受的预约提醒工具。然而,它受到许多障碍的阻碍。因此，我们收集了有关基于SMS的预约提醒的用户障碍的汇总信息。因此,利益相关者应解决现有的已确定的障碍，以更好地干预Mhealth。
未经评估：CRD42022296559。
