Shobha Shah1, Aakash Shinde2, Ankit Anand2, Dhiren Modi2, Gayatri Desai3, Hardik Bhatt2, Ravi Gopalan4, Nishith Dholakia5, Prakash Vaghela5, Shrey Desai2, Pankaj Shah2,3. 1. Women's Health and Training Center, Society for Education, Welfare and Action-(SEWA) Rural, Bharuch, Gujarat, India. 2. Community Health Project, Society for Education, Welfare and Action (SEWA) Rural, Bharuch, Gujarat, India. 3. Kasturba Maternity Hospital, Society for Education, Welfare and Action (SEWA) Rural, Bharuch, Gujarat, India. 4. Argusoft India Ltd, Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India. 5. Department of Health and Family Welfare, Government of Gujarat, Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India.
Abstract
AIM: To evaluate the effectiveness of an mHealth intervention in improving knowledge and skills of accredited social health activists in improving maternal, newborn and child health care in India. METHODS: This was a nested cross-sectional study within a cluster randomised controlled trial. The intervention was a mobile phone application which has inbuilt health education videos, algorithms to diagnose complications and training tools to educate accredited social health activists. A total of 124 were randomly selected from the control (n = 61) and intervention (n = 63) arms of the larger study after six months of training in Bharuch and Narmada districts of Gujarat. RESULTS: The knowledge of accredited social health activists regarding pregnancy (OR: 2.51, CI: 1.12-5.64) and newborn complications (OR: 2.57, CI: 1.12-5.92) was significantly higher in the intervention arm compared to the control arm. The knowledge of complications during delivery (OR: 1.36, CI: 0.62-2.98) and the postpartum (OR: 1.06, CI: 0.48-2.33) period was similar in both groups. The activists from the intervention arm demonstrated better skills for measuring temperature (OR: 4.25, CI: 1.66-10.89) of newborns compared to the control group. CONCLUSION: The results suggest potential benefits of this mHealth intervention for improving knowledge and skills of accredited social health activists.
RCT Entities:
AIM: To evaluate the effectiveness of an mHealth intervention in improving knowledge and skills of accredited social health activists in improving maternal, newborn and child health care in India. METHODS: This was a nested cross-sectional study within a cluster randomised controlled trial. The intervention was a mobile phone application which has inbuilt health education videos, algorithms to diagnose complications and training tools to educate accredited social health activists. A total of 124 were randomly selected from the control (n = 61) and intervention (n = 63) arms of the larger study after six months of training in Bharuch and Narmada districts of Gujarat. RESULTS: The knowledge of accredited social health activists regarding pregnancy (OR: 2.51, CI: 1.12-5.64) and newborn complications (OR: 2.57, CI: 1.12-5.92) was significantly higher in the intervention arm compared to the control arm. The knowledge of complications during delivery (OR: 1.36, CI: 0.62-2.98) and the postpartum (OR: 1.06, CI: 0.48-2.33) period was similar in both groups. The activists from the intervention arm demonstrated better skills for measuring temperature (OR: 4.25, CI: 1.66-10.89) of newborns compared to the control group. CONCLUSION: The results suggest potential benefits of this mHealth intervention for improving knowledge and skills of accredited social health activists.
Keywords:
zzm321990accredited social health activistzzm321990; Implementation research; Knowledge and skills; Maternal, newborn and child health care; mHealth