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Cell phones to collect pregnancy data from remote areas in Liberia
Jody R Lori1, Michelle L Munro, Carol J Boyd
1School of Nursing, Division of Health Promotion and Risk Reduction, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA.
Purpose:
To report findings on knowledge and skill acquisition following a 3-day training session in the use of short message service (SMS) texting with non- and low-literacy traditional midwives.
Design:
A pre- and post-test study design was used to assess knowledge and skill acquisition with 99 traditional midwives on the use of SMS texting for real-time, remote data collection in rural Liberia, West Africa.
Methods:
Paired sample t-tests were conducted to establish if overall mean scores varied significantly from pre-test to immediate post-test. Analysis of variance was used to compare means across groups. The nonparametric McNemar's test was used to determine significant differences between the pre-test and post-test values of each individual step involved in SMS texting. Pearson's chi-square test of independence was used to examine the association between ownership of cell phones within a family and achievement of the seven tasks.
Findings:
The mean increase in cell phone knowledge scores was 3.67, with a 95% confidence interval ranging from 3.39 to 3.95. Participants with a cell phone in the family did significantly better on three of the seven tasks in the pre-test: "turns cell on without help" (χ(2) (1) = 9.15, p= .003); "identifies cell phone coverage" (χ(2) (1) = 5.37, p= .024); and "identifies cell phone is charged" (χ(2) (1) = 4.40, p= .042).
Conclusions:
A 3-day cell phone training session with low- and nonliterate traditional midwives in rural Liberia improved their ability to use mobile technology for SMS texting.
Clinical Relevance:
Mobile technology can improve data collection accessibility and be used for numerous health care and public health issues. Cell phone accessibility holds great promise for collecting health data in low-resource areas of the world.
