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Doctoral Thesis / Dissertation from the year 2023 in the subject Health - Public Health,, course: PhD IN PUBLIC HEALTH, language: English, abstract: The utilization of antenatal care services during pregnancy is reportedly low in Ugandan estimated at a mere 42% notwithstanding the robust interventions implemented the Ministry of Health and other key stakeholders. Poor consumption has culminated into high maternal mortality rates estimated at 336/100,000 live births in Uganda. The study therefore, purposed to evaluate the effect of using mobile telephone communication in providing maternal health information on the utilization of antenatal care services during pregnancy in the districts of Kyotera and Rakaia in Uganda. A cluster Randomized Controlled Trial was adopted by the study. A total of 28 health centers (clusters) were selected using simple random sampling and randomly allocated into the intervention and control study arms on a ratio of 1:1. Overall, 2143 expectant mothers were recruited into the study using systematic sampling at each health centre with an average cluster enrollment of 80 expectant mothers per cluster. In the intervention arm, fortnightly mobile telephone phone-based text, recorded and voice messages comprising of information about the usefulness of maternal health services'such as ANC, PNC and institutional delivery; and reminders of next scheduled ANC appointment were sent to expectant mothers and VHT's hailing from villages serviced by health centres in the intervention arm. On the other hand, expectant mothers randomized into the control arm did not receive any maternal health information on their mobile phones. |
