A rural community-based investigation to assess mHealth for family planning advice in district Multan

Abstract

Background: Globally, Pakistan is the 5th populous country. To increase the use of family planning services by public private business model, Punjab Population Innovation Fund selected “Connect4fp” project implemented by International Rescue Committee organization. The purpose of this research was to determine the impact of mobile health(mHealth) advice on family planning in project area. This project was implemented in 9 Union councils of district Multan, Pakistan. The innovative idea of this project was the use of mobile phones to spread family planning knowledge among community in the form of Interactive Voice Response (IVR) as well as Short Message Service (SMS) (i.e., text messages). Methods: A cross-sectional study targeted 197 men as well as women (mostly married women of reproductive age) receiving mobile messages or recorded robocalls from the project area. The purpose was to assess their family planning knowledge and awareness by using structured Likert scale questionnaire. Secondly the viewpoint about mHealth and its effect on family planning was determined from 40 private providers and 27 Family planning Champions (who were part of the project) by telephonic interviews. Their response was quantified by using Likert scale. Descriptive statistics were calculated of the study’s main variables. The association of family planning knowledge of community members was determined to their contraceptive use by using Chi square. Results:  The results specified that 60% community members included in this study told that their family planning knowledge is increased due to this mHealth program. 36% Private providers while 75% FP Champions were agreed that family planning patients are increased due to this mHealth program. Conclusion: Mobile messages and robocalls about family planning sent in local language positively contributed to increase FP knowledge and awareness in community. This may trigger communication about family planning within couples, as a result increase use of family planning services.