Evaluating the effect of maternal mHealth text messages on uptake of maternal and child health care services in South Af
- PDF / 865,515 Bytes
- 9 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 96 Downloads / 212 Views
Open Access
RESEARCH
Evaluating the effect of maternal mHealth text messages on uptake of maternal and child health care services in South Africa: a multicentre cohort intervention study Jesse Coleman1,2, Vivian Black1,3, Anna Ekéus Thorson2 and Jaran Eriksen2,4*
Abstract Background: There are high expectations that mobile health (mHealth) strategies will increase uptake of health care services, especially in resource strained settings. Our study aimed to evaluate effects of an mHealth intervention on uptake of maternal health services. Methods: This was an intervention cohort study conducted at six public antenatal and postnatal care clinics in innercity Johannesburg, South Africa. The intervention consisted of twice-weekly informative and pregnancy stage-based maternal health information text messages sent to women during pregnancy until their child was one year of age. The intervention arm of 87 mother-infant pairs was compared to a control arm of 90 pairs. Univariate and multivariate analyses were used to compare the probability of the outcome between the two groups. Results: Intervention participants had higher odds of attending all government-recommended antenatal and postnatal visits, all recommended first year vaccinations (OR: 3.2, 95% CI 1.63–6.31) and had higher odds of attending at least the recommended four antenatal visits (OR: 3.21, 95% CI 1.73–5.98). Conclusion: We show an improvement in achieving complete maternal-infant continuum of care, providing evidence of a positive impact of informative maternal mHealth messages sent to pregnant women and new mothers. Trial registration ISRCTN, ISRCTN41772986. Registered 13 February 2019—Retrospectively registered, https://www.isrct n.com/ISRCTN41772986 Keywords: Maternal health, Newborn health, south africa, mHealth, SMS Background Attendance to professional maternal and infant health services during pregnancy (antenatal care or ANC) and postnatal care (PNC), including maternal and infant vaccinations, are key contributors to a healthy pregnancy, delivery and child [1]. Together, ANC, delivery with a *Correspondence: [email protected] 2 Department of Global Public Health, Karolinska Institutet, 171 77 Stockholm, Sweden Full list of author information is available at the end of the article
skilled birth attendant, PNC and infant vaccinations constitute the core of the maternal, neonatal, and infant health continuum of care [2]. ANC visits allow medical professionals to identify health problems related to the pregnancy [3]. It has been found that women attending more ANC visits have lower perinatal morbidity and mortality than those who have fewer antenatal care visits, with a more pronounced effect in low-and middle income countries [4, 5]. The World Health Organization (WHO) currently recommends a minimum of four visits for all pregnancies [6].
© The Author(s) 2020. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any
Data Loading...
