The Effect of Education with an Automatic SMS Reminder System on Type 2 Diabetes Patients’ Medication Adherence

Background: Diabetes is one of themost commonmetabolic diseases leading to debilitating complications. One of themost impor- tant causes of complications in diabetic patients is non-adherence to the medication regimen due to forgetfulness and negligence. Objectives: This study aimed to investigate the effect of education with an automatic SMS reminder system on type 2 diabetes patients’ medication adherence. Methods: This quasi-experimental study was performed on 120 patients with type 2 diabetes referring to the Diabetes Clinic in Zahedan in 2021. The participants were randomly assigned to the control and intervention groups. The participants in the interven- tion group were reminded to take their medications using the automatic SMS service. The data were collected using a demographic information questionnaire and the Morisky Medication Adherence Scale (MMAS). The MMAS items were completed by the partici- pants in both groups before the intervention and one month after the intervention. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS-26 software at a significance level of 0.05. Results: The results indicated that the mean scores of medication adherence in the two intervention and control groups before training with the automatic SMS reminder system were not significantly different (P = 0.052). However, after the intervention, the mean score of medication adherence for the patients in the intervention group was significantly higher than that of the patients in the control group (P = 0.001). Conclusions: Drug reminders using the automated SMS reminder system can improve medication adherence in diabetic patients.