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

Reproductive Health

Anna Ekéus Thorson¹  Jaran Eriksen²  Vivian Black³  Jesse Coleman⁴ 

[1] Department of Global Public Health, Karolinska Institutet, 171 77, Stockholm, Sweden;Department of Global Public Health, Karolinska Institutet, 171 77, Stockholm, Sweden;Department of Laboratory Medicine, Karolinska Institutet, C1 68, Karolinska University Hospital, Huddinge, 141 86, Stockholm, Sweden;Wits Reproductive Health & HIV Institute, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, 22 Esselen Street, Hillbrow, 2000, Johannesburg, South Africa;Department of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 1 Jan Smuts Avenue, Braamfontein, 2000, , Johannesburg, South Africa;Wits Reproductive Health & HIV Institute, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, 22 Esselen Street, Hillbrow, 2000, Johannesburg, South Africa;Department of Global Public Health, Karolinska Institutet, 171 77, Stockholm, Sweden;

关键词: Maternal health;    Newborn health;    south africa;    mHealth;    SMS;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12978-020-01017-3

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundThere 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. MethodsThis was an intervention cohort study conducted at six public antenatal and postnatal care clinics in inner-city 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.ResultsIntervention 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).ConclusionWe 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.isrctn.com/ISRCTN41772986

【 授权许可】

CC BY