Text4Peds: Short Message Service Evaluating Medical Student Education

Saint Louis University (SLU)

Status: Completed

Conditions: Education, Medical, Undergraduate; SMS

Treatments: Other: Non Texting Group; Other: Texting Group

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT03346616

26458

Details and patient eligibility

About

In this study, third year medical students on the pediatric clerkship will be randomized to receive either only written educational material (review journal articles) or written educational material plus daily text messages consisting of board style questions with online answers. The students' performance on the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) Pediatric Subject Evaluation will be compared between the two groups.

Full description

In the last decade, the use of smartphone and text messaging (SMS) has increased significantly; during this time, text messaging has become the primary means of communication in some instances. Despite the popularity, text messaging and smartphones have been rarely utilized in the context of medical education. Few studies have been performed examining the effect of text messaging as an adjunct to traditional medical education. A previous study with the Saint Louis University (SLU) Pediatric Residency program, showed the feasibility of using text messaging to deliver medical information to pediatric residents through the Text4Peds program.

This study aims to expand Text4Peds to third NBME Pediatric Subject Evaluation performance. The NBME Pediatric Subject Evaluation is a national, standardized pediatric knowledge based exam from the NBME taken by all medical students at the end of their pediatric clerkship.

Enrollment: 162 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 20 to 50 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Third year medical students on the Pediatric Clerkship at Saint Louis University School of Medicine

Exclusion criteria

• Third year medical students who did not have a mobile phone capable of receiving a short message service (SMS) text message

Trial design

Primary purpose: Other

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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162 participants in 2 patient groups

Texting Group

Experimental group

Description:

The texting group received a daily text message containing a board style multiple choice question. If the participant wanted immediate feedback, the message contained a link to a website containing the answer to the question along with an explanation, the source material, and a more complete clinical vignette. One hour after the initial text message was sent, a follow up "answer" text message was delivered. Text messages were sent 6 days per week (Monday through Saturday) at 2 pm and 3 pm.

Treatment:

Other: Texting Group

Non Texting Group

Active Comparator group

Description:

The non-texting group received access to the journal articles from which the text message content was derived, but did not receive any text messages or any of the online material or question stems.

Treatment:

Other: Non Texting Group