The DOI matches its Crossref record; 36 of the 36 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Mobile phones improve antenatal care attendance in Zanzibar: a cluster randomized controlled trial
Open accessAbstract
BACKGROUND: Applying mobile phones in healthcare is increasingly prioritized to strengthen healthcare systems. Antenatal care has the potential to reduce maternal morbidity and improve newborns' survival but this benefit may not be realized in sub-Saharan Africa where the attendance and quality of care is declining. We evaluated the association between a mobile phone intervention and antenatal care in a resource-limited setting. We aimed to assess antenatal care in a comprehensive way taking into consideration utilisation of antenatal care as well as content and timing of interventions during pregnancy. METHODS: This study was an open label pragmatic cluster-randomised controlled trial with primary healthcare facilities in Zanzibar as the unit of randomisation. 2550 pregnant women (1311 interventions and 1239 controls) who attended antenatal care at selected primary healthcare facilities were included at their first antenatal care visit and followed until 42 days after delivery. 24 primary health care facilities in six districts were randomized to either mobile phone intervention or standard care. The intervention consisted of a mobile phone text-message and voucher component. Primary outcome measure was four or more antenatal care visits during pregnancy. Secondary outcome measures were tetanus vaccination, preventive treatment for malaria, gestational age at last antenatal care visit, and antepartum referral. RESULTS: The mobile phone intervention was associated with an increase in antenatal care attendance. In the intervention group 44% of the women received four or more antenatal care visits versus 31% in the control group (OR, 2.39; 95% CI, 1.03-5.55). There was a trend towards improved timing and quality of antenatal care services across all secondary outcome measures although not statistically significant. CONCLUSIONS: The wired mothers' mobile phone intervention significantly increased the proportion of women receiving the recommended four antenatal care visits during pregnancy and there was a trend towards improved quality of care with more women receiving preventive health services, more women attending antenatal care late in pregnancy and more women with antepartum complications identified and referred. Mobile phone applications may contribute towards improved maternal and newborn health and should be considered by policy makers in resource-limited settings.
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“The use of SMS only was mentioned in 16 of 26 interventions (62%) [28-31,35,37,38,40-43,45-47,50,52].”
From Barriers to the Use of Mobile Health in Improving Health Outcomes in Developing Countries: Systematic Review (2019) · cites this paper as [31]
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“most SMS based interventions are pilot tested (stage 3) [31,34,37,38,42,71] or at large scale implementation stage (stage 4) [28 -30,32,35].”
From Current evidence on the use of mHealth approaches in Sub-Saharan Africa: A scoping review (2023) · cites this paper as [29]
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“Among the articles analyzed, maternal health was the most prevalent health outcome with a frequency of 9 out of the 30 articles (30%) [27-35].”
From Barriers to the Use of Mobile Health in Improving Health Outcomes in Developing Countries: Systematic Review (2019) · cites this paper as [31]
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“Antenatal care improved with 44% of the intervention arm receiving the recommended four antenatal visits compared to 31% in the control group (38).”
From Assessing the impact of mHealth interventions in low- and middle-income countries – what has been shown to work? (2014) · cites this paper as [38]
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“Less evidence is available regarding end users’ and decision makers’ acceptance of and engagement with digital health technology.”
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“recent evidence has largely focused on app development, dashboards, or the before-and-after effects on awareness or coverage [6,7,10,12,21-25].”
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“In LMICS, mHealth apps are increasingly used for immunizations and other public health concerns”
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BackgroundMobile phone messaging reminders for attendance at healthcare appointments
Car, J., Gurol‐Urganci, I., de Jongh, T. E., Vodopivec‐Jamšek, V., & Atun, R. A. (2012) · Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews · doi:10.1002/14651858.cd007458.pub2 · Cited by 230
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Self-citationHeterogeneous Mobile Phone Ownership and Usage Patterns in Kenya
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Short Message Service (SMS) Applications for Disease Prevention in Developing Countries
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- GSMA: African Mobile Observatory 2011. 2011, London: Groupe Spéciale Mobile Association
- Ministry of Health: Zanzibar Reproductive and Child Health Strategy 2006-2010. 2006, Stonetown: Revolutionary Government of Zanzibar
Cited by
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Lee, S. H., Nurmatov, U. B., Nwaru, B. I., Mukherjee, M., Grant, L., & Pagliari, C. (2016) · Journal of Global Health · doi:10.7189/jogh.06.010401 · Cited by 456
“Only two of the intervention studies were graded as being at low risk of bias [36,42], seven as moderate [29,30,32,34,37–39] and four at high [28,33,43,44] risk of bias (see Table s3 in Online Supplementary Document ).”
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Metadata
- Authors
- Lund, S., Nielsen, B. B., Hemed, M., Boas, I. M., Said, A., Said, K., Makungu, M. H., & Rasch, V.
- Affiliations
- University of Copenhagen (DK)
- Aarhus University Hospital (DK)
- Corresponding author
- Lund, Stine
- Venue
- BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth
- Published
- 2014-01-17
- Volume
- 14
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 29-29
- ISSN
- 1471-2393 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC3898378
- OpenAlex
- W2095109714
- Cited by
- 301
- References
- 36
- Citations by year
- 2026: 11 · 2025: 22 · 2024: 22 · 2023: 20 · 2022: 33 · 2021: 27 · 2020: 35 · 2019: 36 · 2018: 30 · 2017: 29 · 2016: 16 · 2015: 10 · 2014: 9
- FWCI
- 38.62
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- University of Southern Denmark Research Portal (University of Southern Denmark) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Mobile Health and mHealth Applications
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Pediatrics, Perinatology and Child Health › Global Maternal and Child Health
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › ICT in Developing Communities
- Keywords
- mobile devices, antenatal care attendance, text messaging, voucher incentives, tetanus vaccination, malaria prevention, maternal health, newborn health, resource-limited settings, Zanzibar
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Developing Countries, Female, Gestational Age, Humans, Malaria, Patient Acceptance of Health Care, Patient Education as Topic, Pregnancy, Prenatal Care, Tanzania, Tetanus Toxoid, Reminder Systems, Young Adult, Text Messaging
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