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Prospects of mHealth Services in Bangladesh: Recent Evidence from Chakaria

INTRODUCTION: Bangladesh has a serious shortage of qualified health workforce. The limited numbers of trained service providers are based in urban areas, which limits access to quality healthcare for the rural population. mHealth provides a new opportunity to ensure access to quality services to the...

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Autores principales: Khatun, Fatema, Hanifi, SMA., Iqbal, Mohammad, Rasheed, Sabrina, Rahman, M. Shafiqur, Ahmed, Tanvir, Hoque, Shahidul, Sharmin, Tamanna, Khan, Nazib Uz Zaman, Mahmood, Shehrin Shaila, Peters, David H., Bhuiya, Abbas
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4222888/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25375255
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0111413
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author Khatun, Fatema
Hanifi, SMA.
Iqbal, Mohammad
Rasheed, Sabrina
Rahman, M. Shafiqur
Ahmed, Tanvir
Hoque, Shahidul
Sharmin, Tamanna
Khan, Nazib Uz Zaman
Mahmood, Shehrin Shaila
Peters, David H.
Bhuiya, Abbas
author_facet Khatun, Fatema
Hanifi, SMA.
Iqbal, Mohammad
Rasheed, Sabrina
Rahman, M. Shafiqur
Ahmed, Tanvir
Hoque, Shahidul
Sharmin, Tamanna
Khan, Nazib Uz Zaman
Mahmood, Shehrin Shaila
Peters, David H.
Bhuiya, Abbas
author_sort Khatun, Fatema
collection PubMed
description INTRODUCTION: Bangladesh has a serious shortage of qualified health workforce. The limited numbers of trained service providers are based in urban areas, which limits access to quality healthcare for the rural population. mHealth provides a new opportunity to ensure access to quality services to the population. A recent review suggested that there are 19 mHealth initiatives in the country. This paper reports findings on people's knowledge, perception, use, cost and compliance with advice received from mHealth services from a study carried out during 2012–13 in Chakaria, a rural sub-district in Bangladesh. METHODS: A total of 4,915 randomly-chosen respondents aged 18 years and above were interviewed. RESULTS: Household ownership of mobile phones in the study area has increased from 2% in 2004 to 81% in 2012; 45% of the respondents reported that they had mobile phones. Thirty-one percent of the respondents were aware of the use of mobile phones for healthcare. Very few people were aware of the available mHealth services. Males, younger age group, better educated, and those from richer households were more knowledgeable about the existing mHealth services. Among the respondents who sought healthcare in the preceding two weeks of the survey, only 2% used mobile phones for healthcare. Adherence to the advice from the healthcare providers in terms of purchasing and taking the drugs was somewhat similar between the patients who used mobile phone for consultation versus making a physical visit. CONCLUSIONS: The high penetration of mobile phones into the society provides a unique opportunity to use the mHealth technology for consulting healthcare providers. Although knowledge of the existence of mHealth services was low, it was encouraging that the compliance with the prescriptions was almost similar for advice received through mobile phone and physical visits. The study revealed clear indications that society is looking forward to embracing the mHealth technology.
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spelling pubmed-42228882014-11-13 Prospects of mHealth Services in Bangladesh: Recent Evidence from Chakaria Khatun, Fatema Hanifi, SMA. Iqbal, Mohammad Rasheed, Sabrina Rahman, M. Shafiqur Ahmed, Tanvir Hoque, Shahidul Sharmin, Tamanna Khan, Nazib Uz Zaman Mahmood, Shehrin Shaila Peters, David H. Bhuiya, Abbas PLoS One Research Article INTRODUCTION: Bangladesh has a serious shortage of qualified health workforce. The limited numbers of trained service providers are based in urban areas, which limits access to quality healthcare for the rural population. mHealth provides a new opportunity to ensure access to quality services to the population. A recent review suggested that there are 19 mHealth initiatives in the country. This paper reports findings on people's knowledge, perception, use, cost and compliance with advice received from mHealth services from a study carried out during 2012–13 in Chakaria, a rural sub-district in Bangladesh. METHODS: A total of 4,915 randomly-chosen respondents aged 18 years and above were interviewed. RESULTS: Household ownership of mobile phones in the study area has increased from 2% in 2004 to 81% in 2012; 45% of the respondents reported that they had mobile phones. Thirty-one percent of the respondents were aware of the use of mobile phones for healthcare. Very few people were aware of the available mHealth services. Males, younger age group, better educated, and those from richer households were more knowledgeable about the existing mHealth services. Among the respondents who sought healthcare in the preceding two weeks of the survey, only 2% used mobile phones for healthcare. Adherence to the advice from the healthcare providers in terms of purchasing and taking the drugs was somewhat similar between the patients who used mobile phone for consultation versus making a physical visit. CONCLUSIONS: The high penetration of mobile phones into the society provides a unique opportunity to use the mHealth technology for consulting healthcare providers. Although knowledge of the existence of mHealth services was low, it was encouraging that the compliance with the prescriptions was almost similar for advice received through mobile phone and physical visits. The study revealed clear indications that society is looking forward to embracing the mHealth technology. Public Library of Science 2014-11-06 /pmc/articles/PMC4222888/ /pubmed/25375255 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0111413 Text en © 2014 Khatun et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Khatun, Fatema
Hanifi, SMA.
Iqbal, Mohammad
Rasheed, Sabrina
Rahman, M. Shafiqur
Ahmed, Tanvir
Hoque, Shahidul
Sharmin, Tamanna
Khan, Nazib Uz Zaman
Mahmood, Shehrin Shaila
Peters, David H.
Bhuiya, Abbas
Prospects of mHealth Services in Bangladesh: Recent Evidence from Chakaria
title Prospects of mHealth Services in Bangladesh: Recent Evidence from Chakaria
title_full Prospects of mHealth Services in Bangladesh: Recent Evidence from Chakaria
title_fullStr Prospects of mHealth Services in Bangladesh: Recent Evidence from Chakaria
title_full_unstemmed Prospects of mHealth Services in Bangladesh: Recent Evidence from Chakaria
title_short Prospects of mHealth Services in Bangladesh: Recent Evidence from Chakaria
title_sort prospects of mhealth services in bangladesh: recent evidence from chakaria
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4222888/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25375255
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0111413
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