Table 2.
Summary of studies using text messages in patients with schizophrenia and affective disorders.
| Authors (year) | Country | Population (sample) | Text messages | Principal outcome | Method, duration | Result |
| Pijenborg et al (2010) | Netherlands | Patients suffering from schizophrenia with severe cognitive impairment (n=62) | Text message reminders | Improvement in functioning in daily life | Non-randomized controlled trial, 7 weeks | The overall percentage of goals achieved increased with prompting (eg, appointments). Patients enjoyed receiving the message. |
| Depp et al (2010) | USA | Patients with severe mental illness (n=8) in pilot study program | Text messages for EMA | Feasibility evaluation | Pilot study | Monitoring symptoms of patients suffering from severe mental illness using text messages is feasible. |
| Granholm et al (2012) | USA | Patient suffering from schizophrenia (n=55) | Self-monitoring | Responding rate | Pilot study, 12 weeks | Text messaging interventions are feasible and effective in patients with schizophrenia. |
| Maritta Välimäki et al (2012) | Finland | Patient with psychosis (protocol) | Text message support | To evaluate the impact of text messages to encourage treatment adherence and follow-up | Randomized trial, 12 months | To be published |
| Montes et al (2012) | Spain | Patients suffering from schizophrenia (n=254) | Daily text message reminders | Impact of text messages on adherence with antipsychotic treatment | Multicenter, randomized, open-label, controlled study, 3 months | Significant improvement in adherence |
| Ainsworth et al (2013) | UK | Patients with non-affective psychosis (n=24) | Symptom assessment via text messages or native smartphone application (EMA) | Compare text message based assessment strategies to native mobile texting application in terms of satisfaction | Randomized, repeated measure, crossover design, 3 weeks | A greater proportion of data points were completed with the native smartphone application. |
| Bebee et al (2014) | USA | Outpatients followed for schizophrenia (n=30) | Self-monitoring | To evaluate the impact of text messages on treatment adherence | Comparative study with random assignation in intervention groups, 3 months | Non-significant effect on treatment adherence |
| Ben-Zeev et al (2014) | USA | Patients with psychotic disorder and substance abuse (n=70) | Text message support | Feasibility and acceptability | Pilot qualitative study, 12 weeks | 90% of patients found the intervention useful |