Key findings 
- More people attended the clinic and completed TB treatment with pre-appointment reminder phone-calls. 
- More people attended the clinic with pre-appointment phone-calls, and the number attending the final clinic was higher with three- monthly phone-calls or nurse home visits.
- Similar numbers of people attended clinic for skin test reading with and without pre- appointment phone-calls. 
Background 
Effective treatment for TB requires people to take multiple drugs daily for at least six months. Consequently, once they start to feel well again, some patients stop attending clinics and stop taking their medication which can lead to the illness returning and the development of drug resistance. One strategy the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends is that an appointed person (a health worker or volunteer) watches the person take their medication everyday (called direct observation). Other strategies include reminder systems to prompt patients to attend appointments on time, or to re-engage people who have missed or defaulted on a scheduled appointment. These prompts may be in the form of telephone calls or letters before the next scheduled appointment (“pre-appointment reminders”), or phone calls, letters, or home visits after a missed appointment (“default reminders”).