Effectiveness of mHEALTH Application at Primary Health Care to Improve Maternal and New-born Health Services in Rural Ethiopia: Comparative study

Ethiopia has recently implemented mHealth technology on a limited scale to help increase the uptake of health services, including intervention for maternal and new-born health service utilisation. In this study, the effectiveness of the mHealth intervention was assessed by measuring the level of maternal health service utilization in 4 Health Centers in Ethiopia. The study was comparative by design employing comparison of maternal and newborn health service utilization before and after initiation of mHealth implementation. Follow-up data of 800 clients were randomly selected and included in the study, to determine the magnitude of maternal and new-born health service utilization. Data analysis included comparison of pre-mHealth (baseline) with mHealth follow-up data, using independent t-test to compare magnitude of maternal and new-born health service utilization. The mean of antenatal care follow-up during their recent pregnancy was 2.21(SD{+/-}1.02) and 3.43(SD{+/-}0.88) for baseline and intervention, respectively. Antenatal visit of four or more was reached for 55(13.8%) of the baseline and 256(64%) of pregnant women in the mHealth intervention group. Pregnant womens timeliness to start ANC follow-up at baseline and intervention groups was 44.5% and 77.3%, respectively. Institutional delivery at baseline and intervention groups were 35.0% and was 71.2%, respectively. Of women who gave birth, 23.8% at baseline received first postnatal care within 6 hours, 11.3% within 6 days, and 6.8% within 6 weeks. In the intervention group, 84% delivered women received first postpartum within 6 hours after delivery, 70.8% after 6 hours, and 46% made their third postpartum visit within 6 weeks after delivery. Penta-3 vaccination coverage at baseline and mHealth intervention groups was 61.5% and 70.4%, respectively. The study result suggest that the introduction of a low-cost mHealth technologies contributed to the observed improvement of maternal and new-born health service utilization. This intervention shows promise for scale up as well as to be applied to other health interventions beyond maternal and newborn health services.