Effect of mHealth tool on knowledge regarding reproductive health of school going adolescent girls: a before-after quasi-experimental study

OBJECTIVE: This study was executed to (1) assess the effect of mHealth (mobile health) tool on knowledge regarding reproductive health (RH) of adolescent girls and (2) determine the utilisation of mHealth tool among school girls. DESIGN: Before-after type of quasi-experimental study. SETTING: Dhaka North City Corporation in Bangladesh. PARTICIPANTS: 400 adolescent girls aged 14–19 years were selected based on defined criteria. INTERVENTIONS: Short message service (SMS) intervention on RH was delivered through a mobile phone. PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOME MEASURES: 8 schools out of 61 were randomly selected in the study area. A total of 400 girls were selected randomly on permission from those schools and parents. SMS interventions were delivered for 8 weeks. The data were collected using a self-administered questionnaire before and after SMS intervention to evaluate the effect. The number of responses to weekly SMS determined mHealth usage or practice. RESULTS: Postintervention knowledge score (mean 70.8%±9.7%) on RH was significantly higher (paired t=69.721, p<0.001) than preintervention knowledge score (mean 44.71%±9.13%) with a large effect size (cohen’s d=3.6). The knowledge score on RH was (p<0.001) correlated (+0.636) with SMS response. Multiple linear regression indicated that increase response to one SMS intervention there was an increase of knowledge score by 2.661% (linear slope 2.66, at 95% CI, p<0.001) after controlling the confounder. The mean knowledge score in all five knowledge segments of RH increased significantly (p<0.001) after SMS intervention. CONCLUSION: The result indicated that the SMS tool of the mHealth approach is an easy and effective way to improve RH knowledge for adolescent girls. SMS intervention was well accepted by the girls. Thereby this mHealth tool can be chosen to provide health information for a mass approach.