Text Message Responsivity in a 2-Way Short Message Service Pilot Intervention With Adolescent and Young Adult Survivors of Cancer.
OBJECTIVE
Within a 2-way text messaging study in AYAs who recently completed treatment for cancer, we sought to evaluate text message responsivity across different types of text messages.


METHODS
AYAs who recently completed treatment for cancer (n=26; mean age=16 years; 62% female, 16/26 participants) received 2-way text messages about survivorship health topics over a 16-week period. Using participants' text message log data, we coded responsivity to text messages and evaluated trends in responsivity to unprompted text messages and prompted text messages of varying content (eg, medication reminders, appointment reminders, and texts about personal experiences as a cancer survivor).


RESULTS
Across prompted and unprompted text messages, responsivity rapidly decreased (P ≤.001 and =.01, respectively) and plateaued by the third week of the intervention. However, participants were more responsive to prompted text messages (mean responsivity=46% by week 16) than unprompted messages (mean responsivity=10% by week 16). They also demonstrated stable responsivity to certain prompted content: medication reminders, appointment reminders, goal motivation, goal progress, and patient experience texts.


CONCLUSIONS
Our methodology of evaluating text message responsivity revealed important patterns of engagement in a 2-way text message intervention for AYA cancer survivors.
['Psihogios|Alexandra M|AM|0000-0002-4111-1191', 'Li|Yimei|Y|0000-0001-9067-6992', 'Butler|Eliana|E|0000-0003-1243-3324', 'Hamilton|Jessica|J|0000-0003-4370-4203', 'Daniel|Lauren C|LC|0000-0002-8637-2424', 'Barakat|Lamia P|LP|0000-0002-0938-4712', 'Bonafide|Christopher P|CP|0000-0003-2823-5883', 'Schwartz|Lisa A|LA|0000-0002-7034-9553']
D000293:Adolescent D000073116:Cancer Survivors D005260:Female D006801:Humans D008297:Male D009042:Motivation D009369:Neoplasms D010865:Pilot Projects D012944:Social Support D060145:Text Messaging D013997:Time Factors D055815:Young Adult
adolescents young adults cancer chronic illness mHealth self-management