BACKGROUND
Maternal mortality remains high in many low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) where limited access to health services is linked to low antenatal care (ANC) utilization. Effective communication and engagement with care providers is vital for the delivery and receipt of sufficient health care services. There is strong evidence to show that simple text-based interventions can improve prenatal care utilization but most mHealth interventions doesn’t go to scale because of lack of context.
OBJECTIVE
The aim of this study was to determine access to mobile phones by pregnant women attending ANC, willingness to receive an SMS-based mHealth intervention for ANC services and to identify its associated factors among pregnant women attending ANC clinic in Gondar Town administration, North West Ethiopia.
METHODS
A cross sectional quantitative study was conducted among 422 pregnant women attending ANC from March 27- April 28, 2017. Data were collected using structured interviewer-administered questionnaires. Data entry and analysis were done using Epi-Info version 7 and SPSS version 20 respectively. Descriptive statistics, bivariable and multivariable logistic regression analysis was done. Odds ratio with 95% confidence interval was used to identify factors associated with willingness to receive SMS based mHealth intervention.
RESULTS
A total of 416 (98.6 % response rate) respondents were included in the analysis. About 76.7% (319/416) of respondents owned a mobile phone, and 71.2% (296/416) were willing to receive SMS. Factors associated with willingness were: Youth age group (AOR = 2.869, 95 % CI: [1.451-5.651], having Secondary and above education level (AOR = 4.995, 95 % CI: [1.489-14.773] and frequency of mobile phone use (AOR = 0.319, 95 % CI: [0.141-0.718]).
CONCLUSIONS
A high proportion of pregnant women in an ANC clinic in this remote setting have mobile phone and are willing to receive SMS based mHealth intervention. Age, educational status and frequency of mobile phone use are significantly associated with willingness to receive SMS based mHealth interventions.
Assessing Mobile Phone Access and Willingness for Text-Based mHealth Intervention to Improve Prenatal Care at Primary Care Centers in North West Ethiopia: a Cross-sectional Study (Preprint)
