Table 1.

Content analysis of participant comments (N = 200) about benefits and barriers to text message reminders.

Category and emergent themes		Definition	Freq (%)	Examples of comments
Benefits
	Technology	The speed with which information is available, ability to link to other systems/calendars, or other comments related to cellular phone technology.	47 (37.0)	“Text doesn’t waste time and minutes like a phone call,” “You can put it right into appt book in phone,” and “Text will come through later if in bad reception where a phone call won’t.”
	Convenience	Information related to the ease or timeliness of receiving reminders.	35 (27.6)	“Easier,” “quick,” “convenient,” and “I can lock it and go back and check it later.”
	Communication	Includes preferences for, or avoidance of, specific avenues of communication.	23 (18.1)	“Saves time versus phone conversations,” “I respond more to a text,” and “I don’t always check missed calls, but I do check missed texts.”
	General positive	Comments regarding the benefits or the usefulness of reminders in general.	22 (17.3)	“A reminder is good” and “I’m forgetful so I’ll have a written reminder.”
Barriers
	Technology	Comments related to costs, lack of text capabilities, or not being technology-savvy.	43 (58.9)	“You might get charged for text if you don’t have the unlimited plan,” “Turned off phones,” and “Text not working or delayed.”
	None identified	Participant was unable to come up with any negatives to using text messaging.	13 (17.8)	“None,” “none for me,” or “no problems.”
	Communication	Concerns regarding ability to understand text content, its limited characters, the use of abbreviations, or being provided inaccurate information.	9 (12.3)	“Accuracy,” “punctuation,” and “Parents might not understand the text if they don’t know a lot about immunizations.”
	Other	Any item not appropriate for one of the above categories.	8 (11.0)	“Doctor’s office might get overwhelmed with texts coming in” and “forgetting about it.”