Assessment of voluntary community health workers participation and contribution in mHealth intervention

Abstract

Abstract Background: Voluntary community health workers (vCHWs) live within the community and are identified and trained to assist in disseminating preventive health messages at individual and community level in support of Health Extension Workers (HEWs). They use house to house visit to disseminate preventive health messages. The Objective of this manuscript is to assess how use of mobile phone with mHealth application help in facilitating vCHW routine health related work. Methods: The study employed pre and post intervention cross sectional survey on phone use of vCHW at Abeshge and Ezha woredas of Guraghe zone, SNNPR. Data was collected using pretested structured questionnaire. Pre and post mHealth intervention impact on health outcome was measured by performing a community based survey of mothers and comparing the pre-post intervention differences between the two woredas. SPSS 20 statistical software was used to analyze data. Results: A total of 85 vCHW serving both woredas participated in the study. Following intervention, nearly all respondents in Abeshge claimed using mobile phone for work related matters compared to only 27.5% of those in Ezha. The majority of respondents in Abeshge reported use of mobile phone as a means of communication to inform mothers time of vaccination campaign (66.7%) and attendance of ANC (68.(%). Comparison of selected maternal health indicators like number of ANC attendance, place of delivery, percentage of professionally assisted delivery and etc did not show strong statistical difference between the two woredas. Conclusion: Participants are currently using mobile phone which is an important entry point to facilitate provision of relevant maternal and child health information to mothers through vCHW. [Ethiop. J. Health Dev. 2015;29(3):154-159] Key words: Voluntary community health workers, participation, mHealth, Ethiopia