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A protocol for a pilot cluster randomized control trial of e-vouchers and mobile phone application to enhance access to maternal health services in Cameroon

BACKGROUND: Cameroon still has relatively high maternal mortality rate (MMR) of 596/100,000 live births. Approximately 40% of births are unattended by skilled healthcare personnel with high out-of-pocket expenditures. Poor resource allocation, poorly functioning referral systems, long trekking dista...

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Autores principales: Nkangu, Miriam N., Okwen, Patrick M., Mbuagbaw, Lawrence, Weledji, Donald K., Roberts, Janet Hatcher, Yaya, Sanni
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7155248/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32313683
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40814-020-00589-y
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author Nkangu, Miriam N.
Okwen, Patrick M.
Mbuagbaw, Lawrence
Weledji, Donald K.
Roberts, Janet Hatcher
Yaya, Sanni
author_facet Nkangu, Miriam N.
Okwen, Patrick M.
Mbuagbaw, Lawrence
Weledji, Donald K.
Roberts, Janet Hatcher
Yaya, Sanni
author_sort Nkangu, Miriam N.
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Cameroon still has relatively high maternal mortality rate (MMR) of 596/100,000 live births. Approximately 40% of births are unattended by skilled healthcare personnel with high out-of-pocket expenditures. Poor resource allocation, poorly functioning referral systems, long trekking distances to health facilities, all of which lead to low rates of use of maternal health services. OBJECTIVES: The aim of this pilot study is to explore perception and acceptability of mobile health (mhealth) and e-voucher and to determine the feasibility of conducting a large cluster randomized trial to determine the effects of combining e-vouchers and a mobile application compared with usual care in improving access to and use of maternal health services. METHODS: This is a multimethod study that comprises two phases. The first phase is the development of the mobile phone app, which includes a qualitative formative study through in-depth key informant interviews and focus group discussions. The second phase is a cluster randomized control trial assessing the combination of e-vouchers and a mobile application compared with usual care in improving access to and use of maternal health services. Feasibility will be determined based on evaluating randomization, contamination, enrollment rate, complete follow up, compliance rate, success in matching data from different sources, and data completeness. ETHICS AND DISCUSSION: Ethics approval has been granted, and the trial has been registered in the Pan-African Clinical Trials Registry. We will disseminate our findings through peer-reviewed manuscripts and conference presentations. Findings from this study will inform the design and conduct of a larger randomized trial. TRIAL REGISTRATION: PACTR201808703097367. The trial on the Pan African Clinical Trials Registry.
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spelling pubmed-71552482020-04-20 A protocol for a pilot cluster randomized control trial of e-vouchers and mobile phone application to enhance access to maternal health services in Cameroon Nkangu, Miriam N. Okwen, Patrick M. Mbuagbaw, Lawrence Weledji, Donald K. Roberts, Janet Hatcher Yaya, Sanni Pilot Feasibility Stud Study Protocol BACKGROUND: Cameroon still has relatively high maternal mortality rate (MMR) of 596/100,000 live births. Approximately 40% of births are unattended by skilled healthcare personnel with high out-of-pocket expenditures. Poor resource allocation, poorly functioning referral systems, long trekking distances to health facilities, all of which lead to low rates of use of maternal health services. OBJECTIVES: The aim of this pilot study is to explore perception and acceptability of mobile health (mhealth) and e-voucher and to determine the feasibility of conducting a large cluster randomized trial to determine the effects of combining e-vouchers and a mobile application compared with usual care in improving access to and use of maternal health services. METHODS: This is a multimethod study that comprises two phases. The first phase is the development of the mobile phone app, which includes a qualitative formative study through in-depth key informant interviews and focus group discussions. The second phase is a cluster randomized control trial assessing the combination of e-vouchers and a mobile application compared with usual care in improving access to and use of maternal health services. Feasibility will be determined based on evaluating randomization, contamination, enrollment rate, complete follow up, compliance rate, success in matching data from different sources, and data completeness. ETHICS AND DISCUSSION: Ethics approval has been granted, and the trial has been registered in the Pan-African Clinical Trials Registry. We will disseminate our findings through peer-reviewed manuscripts and conference presentations. Findings from this study will inform the design and conduct of a larger randomized trial. TRIAL REGISTRATION: PACTR201808703097367. The trial on the Pan African Clinical Trials Registry. BioMed Central 2020-04-14 /pmc/articles/PMC7155248/ /pubmed/32313683 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40814-020-00589-y Text en © The Author(s) 2020 Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Study Protocol
Nkangu, Miriam N.
Okwen, Patrick M.
Mbuagbaw, Lawrence
Weledji, Donald K.
Roberts, Janet Hatcher
Yaya, Sanni
A protocol for a pilot cluster randomized control trial of e-vouchers and mobile phone application to enhance access to maternal health services in Cameroon
title A protocol for a pilot cluster randomized control trial of e-vouchers and mobile phone application to enhance access to maternal health services in Cameroon
title_full A protocol for a pilot cluster randomized control trial of e-vouchers and mobile phone application to enhance access to maternal health services in Cameroon
title_fullStr A protocol for a pilot cluster randomized control trial of e-vouchers and mobile phone application to enhance access to maternal health services in Cameroon
title_full_unstemmed A protocol for a pilot cluster randomized control trial of e-vouchers and mobile phone application to enhance access to maternal health services in Cameroon
title_short A protocol for a pilot cluster randomized control trial of e-vouchers and mobile phone application to enhance access to maternal health services in Cameroon
title_sort protocol for a pilot cluster randomized control trial of e-vouchers and mobile phone application to enhance access to maternal health services in cameroon
topic Study Protocol
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7155248/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32313683
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40814-020-00589-y
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