BACKGROUND
The prenatal education sessions are part of a national program that seeks to prevent obstetric and neonatal complications, however, the pandemic affected attendance at the program. Previous studies have evaluated the positive effect of SMS as a reminder, but there is no one in this field.
OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the effect of an intervention by sending text messages (SMS) on attendance at the prenatal education service for Peruvian pregnant women.
METHODS
Study of true experimental design with control group. We evaluated 62 pregnant women attending the prenatal education service, of which 31 received SMS (intervention) and 31 did not (control), assigning the arm randomly. In addition, the quality of service was assessed througha national standard instrument. It was approved by the corresponding Ministry of Health entity and the ethics committee of the faculty of medicine.
RESULTS
The analysis showed that having received SMS reduces the risk of not attending prenatal education sessions (HRa=0.574; p=0.047); likewise, the intervention increases the probability of attending at least 5 (RR=3.25: p=0.010) and 6 sessions of the educational program (RR=4.50; p=0.020). Finally, the perception of quality of care was similar in both arms, although in both there was a significant improvement in perception (p<0.05).
CONCLUSIONS
SMS as a reminder significantly improves attendance at the prenatal education service; likewise, the participants showed an improvement in the perception of the quality of care.