Impact of mobile phone-based technology to improve health, population and nutrition services in Rural Bangladesh: a study protocol
Open accessAbstract
BACKGROUND: Mobile phone-based technology has been used in improving the delivery of healthcare services in many countries. However, data on the effects of this technology on improving primary healthcare services in resource-poor settings are limited. The aim of this study is to develop and test a mobile phone-based system to improve health, population and nutrition services in rural Bangladesh and evaluate its impact on service delivery. METHODS: The study will use a quasi-experimental pre-post design, with intervention and comparison areas. Outcome indicators will include: antenatal care (ANC), delivery care, postnatal care (PNC), neonatal care, expanded programme on immunization (EPI) coverage, and contraceptive prevalence rate (CPR). The study will be conducted over a period of 30 months, using the existing health systems of Bangladesh. The intervention will be implemented through the existing service-delivery personnel at various primary-care levels, such as community clinic, union health and family welfare centre, and upazila health complex. These healthcare providers will be given mobile phones equipped with Apps for sending text and voice messages, along with the use of Internet and device for data-capturing. Training on handling of the Smartphones, data-capturing and monitoring will be given to selected service providers. They will also be trained on inputs, editing, verifying, and monitoring the outcome variables. DISCUSSION: Mobile phone-based technology has the potential to improve primary healthcare services in low-income countries, like Bangladesh. It is expected that our study will contribute to testing and developing a mobile phone-based intervention to improve the coverage and quality of services. The learning can be used in other similar settings in the low-and middle-income countries.
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The combination of SMS, smartphone app, and cell calls occurred in only 1 of 26 (4%) interventions.
“Finally, the combination of SMS, smartphone app, and cell calls occurred in only 1 of 26 (4%) interventions [33].”
From Barriers to the Use of Mobile Health in Improving Health Outcomes in Developing Countries: Systematic Review (2019) · cites this paper as [33]
Maternal health was the most prevalent health outcome, with a frequency of 9 out of 30 articles (30%).
“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 [33]
Text messaging has an advantage over other communication methods because of its low cost and high reliability.
“Compared with other methods of communication, text messaging has an advantage due to its low cost and high reliability [33].”
From Barriers to the Use of Mobile Health in Improving Health Outcomes in Developing Countries: Systematic Review (2019) · cites this paper as [33]
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Self-citation
- Authors
- Uddin, J., Biswas, T., Adhikary, G., Ali, W., Alam, N., Palit, R., Uddin, N., Uddin, A., Khatun, F., & Bhuiya, A.
- Affiliations
- International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research (BD)
- Corresponding author
- Uddin, Jasim
- ORCID
- Venue
- BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making
- Published
- 2017-07-06
- Volume
- 17
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 101-101
- ISSN
- 1472-6947 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC5500967
- OpenAlex
- W2729095248
- Cited by
- 37
- References
- 28
- Citations by year
- 2025: 1 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 13 · 2020: 4 · 2019: 4 · 2018: 2
- FWCI
- 4.43
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by
- Locations
- BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- Joint Donor Technical Assistant Fund, DFID
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Mobile Health and mHealth Applications
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › ICT in Developing Communities
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Telemedicine and Telehealth Implementation
- Keywords
- mobile health, rural Bangladesh, prenatal care, postpartum care, neonatal care, vaccination coverage, contraceptive prevalence, health service coverage, text messaging, health professions education, low-income countries
- MeSH terms
- Smartphone, Bangladesh, Clinical Protocols, Community Health Services, Developing Countries, Family Planning Services, Female, Humans, Maternal Health Services, Poverty, Pregnancy, Rural Population, Telemedicine, Immunization Programs, Cell Phone
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