Assessment of mobile health nursing intervention knowledge among community health nurses in Oyo State, Nigeria

Abstract

Background: Maternal mortality is high in Nigeria especially in rural areas due to knowledge deficit about expected care and labor process, socio cultural belief, health care workers' attitude, physical and financial barriers to quality health care access. Mobile health (m- health) technology which is the use of mobile telecommunication devices in health care delivery reduces costs, improves care access, removes time and distance barriers and facilitates patient-provider communications needed to make appropriate health decisions. Previous studies empowering nurses with m- health knowledge resulted in improved uptake of health care services. There exists a literature dearth about knowledge and perception of nurses in Nigeria. This study became expedient to empower nurses working at the grassroots with the knowledge of m-health and assess the impact of educational training on their perception of its effectiveness. Method: This quasi-experimental study carried out in four randomly selected LGAs across Oyo South Senatorial district involved participants at experimental (21 nurses) and control levels (26 nurses). A validated 25- item questionnaire explored nurses' perception, knowledge and perceived effectiveness of m-health in improving uptake of maternal health services in Nigeria among both groups before intervention. Intervention group nurses had a training equipping them with knowledge of m-health nursing intervention (MHNI) for a period of one week. Their perception, knowledge and perceived effectiveness were re-assessed at three-months and six-months after MHNI. Data were analyzed using Chi-square and repeated measures ANOVA at 5% significance level. Result: In the EG, knowledge score significantly increased from 21.9±4.5 at baseline to 23.6±4.6 and 23.2±5.6 at three-month and six-month respectively while there was no significant difference in knowledge score among CG over the study period. A very significant difference was shown in the knowledge and perception of mobile health and its effectiveness at PI (p= 0.012 and 0.017) but this significance faded away 6 months after (p= 0.312 and 0.598) respectively. Conclusion: The study was effective as it improved the knowledge and perceived effectiveness of m-health among PHC nurses. However, the improvement dwindled after 6 months. Thus, similar training and retraining should be conducted periodically to update nurses' knowledge and improve clients' access to quality health information, education and therapeutic communication.