Influence of a Website on Pregnant Women’s Knowledge of and Motivation for Antenatal Visits during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Indonesia

Abstract

Due to the novel Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), which was declared a global pandemic on 11 March 2020, there was limited antenatal care service information available in Indonesia. This study aimed to analyse pregnant women’s knowledge of and motivation for prenatal visits, and their satisfaction with the COVID-19 Maternal-Child Health Education Universitas Brawijaya (COVIMEDUB) website. The study respondents were divided into two groups and the study was conducted from June to November 2021. The respondents were pregnant women who were capable of operating a smartphone and who received offline antenatal care at the Public Health Centre (PHC) in Singosari, Malang Regency, Indonesia. The intervention group were given access to the COVIMEDUB website. Data collection used pre- and post-test questionnaires. Moreover, the data analysis used the paired t-test, the Wilcoxon signed-rank test and the independent t-test. The results revealed that the group using the website had the highest average score for knowledge and motivation (3.13 ± 1.65 and 3.93 ± 3.31), and there were significant differences between knowledge and motivation (p-value 0.000 and 0.002). Furthermore, the highest average score for website satisfaction was achieved for being capable of assisting mothers in obtaining the information they require (4.27 ± 0.51). In conclusion, the use of the website significantly enhanced pregnant women’s knowledge of and motivation for antenatal visits. Therefore, it is necessary to improve healthcare provider’s ability to provide variations of educational media, mainly based on technology.