Help is just a text away: The use of short message service texting to provide an additional means of support for health care students during practice placements Pat Young a, * , Emma Moore b,1 , Garfield Griffiths a,2 , Rosi Raine c,3 , Rob Stewart a,4 , Matthew Cownie a,5 , Manuel Frutos-Perez d,6 a Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, University of the West of England, Bristol, Blackberry Hill, Bristol BS16 1DD, United Kingdom b School of Nursing and Midwifery, University of Cumbria, Bowerham Road, Lancaster LA1 3JD, United Kingdom c Peninsula Allied Health Centre, University of Plymouth, Derriford Road, Plymouth PL6 8BH, United Kingdom d E-learning Development Unit, University of the West of England, Bristol, Coldharbour Lane, Bristol BS16 1QY, United Kingdom article info Article history: Accepted 18 June 2009 Keywords: Texting Mobile technology Placements Student support summary This article discusses the findings from a pilot study using short message service (SMS) texting to provide an additional means of support for health care students in practice placements. Pre-registration students were recruited students from 2nd year cohorts in Adult Nursing, Children’s Nursing, Occupational Ther- apy, and Radiography to pilot the use of SMS texting with their private mobile phones from their work-based learning placements. The pilot was evaluated using an online questionnaire for students with follow-up telephone interviews, and face-to-face interviews with the four tutors. Data on the use of the service by students was also collated. Although the students made less use of the service than was antic- ipated, both staff and students were positive about the potential of this type of communication in provid- ing an additional form of support for students in placements. Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Introduction Students in the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences at the Uni- versity of the West of England (UWE), Bristol are provided with a range of support mechanisms whilst on placement. These vary be- tween programmes, and are described in more detail below, but in- clude a UWE email account, visits from link lecturers, fortnightly work-based learning days (WBLDs) in the university, where the students are facilitated in exploring issues from practice, and ded- icated telephone lines to access specialist placement support staff. Despite this extensive support system, previous research at UWE, Bristol suggested the need for increased communication whilst students are in practice placements. In a project exploring reten- tion, Young et al. (2006) argued that, despite support mechanisms within health care placements, students expect to be ‘owned’ by the university and sometimes felt abandoned whilst on placements, particularly when problems arose. Students access placements within a large geographical area and this physical dis- tance from the university can exacerbate the issue. A later action research project, (Moule et al., 2006; Ward and Moule, 2007) rec- ommended the use of mobile technologies to support students in distant placements and reduce feelings of isolation whilst on prac- tice. The report concluded that SMS communication provided the most appropriate technology to address the issues identified by the research. An external SMS gateway was identified which would allow texts sent by students to be converted to emails for staff, and for emails sent as replies to students to be converted into text mes- sages. The attraction of this system lies in the ability for both staff and students to communicate through a medium already used on a day-to-day basis: email in the case of staff and SMS texting from mobile phones in the case of students. University database and anecdotal evidence suggests that the majority of students have mobile phones. Mobile phones are portable and tend to be carried between locations. Students are comfortable with SMS texting as a means of communication. Staff access email throughout normal working practice and from different locations. The system does not of course prevent use of other media, for example a member of staff receiving an email sent as a text, might choose to call the student if the response was too long or complex for a text message. SMS texting is relatively inexpensive. In the findings section we report the actual cost of the pilot for the university and our estimate of the monthly cost of the system. Many students have contracts on 0260-6917/$ - see front matter Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.nedt.2009.06.010 * Corresponding author. Tel.: +44 0117 3288815. E-mail addresses: pat2.young@uwe.ac.uk (P. Young), Emma.moore@cumbria. ac.uk (E. Moore), garfield.griffiths@uwe.ac.uk (G. Griffiths), rosi.raine@plymouth. ac.uk (R. Raine), rob.stewart@uwe.ac.uk (R. Stewart), matthew.cownie@uwe.ac.uk (M. Cownie), Manuel.Frutos-Perez@uwe.ac.uk (M. Frutos-Perez). 1 Tel.: +44 01524 384236. 2 Tel.: +44 0117 3288516. 3 Tel.: +44 01752 238800. 4 Tel.: +44 0117 3288920. 5 Tel.: +44 0117 3288566. 6 Tel.: +44 0117 3286357. Nurse Education Today 30 (2010) 118–123 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Nurse Education Today journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/nedt