PRENACEL - a mHealth messaging system to complement antenatal care: a cluster randomized trial

Background: The aim of this study was to determine whether PRENACEL (a bi-directional, mobile-phone based, short text message service (SMS)) increases the coverage of recommended antenatal care (ANC) practices. Methods: A parallel, cluster-randomized trial in which 20 public primary Health Care Units (PHCUs) were randomly allocated to the intervention (10 PHCUs) or control (10 PHCUs) group. The study population included pregnant women aged 18 or above with a gestational age of 20 weeks or less. Pregnant women receiving ANC in intervention PHCUs were invited through leaflets and posters to register in PRENACEL. Women who registered in PRENACEL received a weekly set of short text messages with health education and health promotion content related to pregnancy and childbirth and were also able to clarify ANC queries through SMS. All women received routine ANC. The primary outcome was the proportion of women with high ANC Score, a composite measure of coverage of recommended ANC practices. Chi-square or Fisher's exact tests and multivariate log-binomial regression were used to analyze the outcomes. Results: A total of 1210 eligible women received ANC in the participating PHCUs and took part of this study (770 in the intervention group and 440 in the control group). 20.4% (157/770) of intervention-group women registered in PRENACEL, but only 116 read all messages (73.9% of women who registered in PRENACEL, 116/157). The adjusted intention-to-treat analysis suggested no difference between intervention and control groups in the primary outcome (Adjusted Relative Risk (AdjRR): 1.05 (95% Confidence Interval (CI): 1.00-1.09). Both crude and adjusted per-protocol analysis suggested a positive effect of PRENACEL (Crude RR (95% CI): 1.14 (1.06-1.22), AdjRR (95% CI): 1.12 (1.05-1.21). The multivariate analysis also suggests that the PRENACEL group (women who read all SMS) had higher mean ANC score [48.5 (+/- 4.2) vs 45.2 (+/- 8.7), p < 0.01], higher proportion of women with >= 6 ANC visits (96.9% vs. 84.8%, p = 0.01), and higher rates of syphilis testing (40.5% vs. 24.8%, p = 0.03) and HIV testing (46. 6% vs. 25.7%, p < 0.01) during ANC. Conclusions: A bi-directional, mobile-phone based, short text message service is potentially useful to improve the coverage of recommended ANC practices, including syphilis and HIV testing.