Parent Preferences for Communicating With Their Adolescent's Provider Using New Technologies

PURPOSE: Because adolescents make few health care visits, we assessed the views of parents of adolescents on various means to communicate with their adolescents\' physicians about vaccine reminders and appointments, medication refills and test results-including phone, mail, e-mail, text messages, and personal health records (PHRs).

METHODS:

We performed a cross-sectional survey of 400 parents of adolescents presenting to four pediatric offices (two urban, two suburban) in Rochester, NY in 2011 before vaccine reminders occurring in these practices.

RESULTS:

Roughly half of parents (60% urban, 52% suburban, p = .11) were accepting of teens receiving their own vaccine reminders. Urban parents preferred communicating with the provider via telephone, whereas suburban parents preferred e-mail for most issues and a PHR for receipt of test results. In adjusted analyses, being younger was associated with preferring text message vaccine reminders (41 to <51 years: adjusted relative risk [aRR] = .8, p = .02; ≥51 years, aRR = .5, p < .001), and being a suburban parent was associated with preferring e-mail reminders (aRR = 1.6, p < .001). Those who were younger (41 to <51 years: aRR = .6, p = .007; ≥51 years: aRR = .4, p < .001) and suburban (aRR = 2.4, p < .001) were most likely to be interested in general use of a PHR.

CONCLUSIONS:

Our study shows that some, but not all, parents are ready for electronic (text message, e-mail, PHR) communications for their adolescents\' health care and that a parent age and socioeconomic divide exists. Providing options in the means in which parents communicate with an adolescent\'s provider is ideal.