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Assessment of pregnant women's intention to use a mobile application-based decision aid for prenatal screening for
Sehouenou Albéric Candide Ahouehome1, Alexandre Bureau2, Samira Abbasgholizadeh Rahimi3
1Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Université Laval, Quebec, QC, Canada; VITAM - Centre de recherche en santé durable, Centre intégré universitaire de santé et de services sociaux de la Capitale-Nationale, Quebec, QC, Canada.
Background:
Decsions about prenatal screening for trisomies are complex for some women. Mobile decision aids (mDAs) can help them make informed decisions based on their values and preferences.
Objective:
To assess pregnant women's intention to use an mDA for prenatal screening of trisomies 21, 18, and 13.
Methods:
This mixed-methods study in Quebec recruited a purposeful sample of women aged 18 or over, at least 16 weeks pregnant or who had given birth in the past year after a low-risk pregnancy. After they completed a paper-based decision aid, we assessed their intention, and its psychosocial determinants, to use a mobile version. Quantitative data underwent descriptive, bivariate, and multivariate analyses; qualitative data were thematically analyzed.
Results:
67 pregnant women participated, mostly French-speaking (89.6 %), aged 25-34 (59.7 %). Mean intention to use the mDA was 4.92 (SD: 2.03). Beliefs about consequences (β:1.21; p < 0.0001) and social influence (β:0.17; p = 0.03) were significant predictors of intention, explaining 77.5 % of variance, and 63 % of women evaluated the proposed mDA positively.
Conclusions:
Beliefs about consequences and social influence were the main pyschosocial factors associated with pregnant women's intention to use an mDA for prenatal screening.
Practice Implications:
Healthcare providers could increase uptake by adopting strategies that underline the social acceptability and benefits of mDAs.
