Youth Empowerment: The Role of Service Design and Mobile Technology in Accessing Reproductive Health Information. (original) (raw)
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Capitalising the strength of mobile apps in confronting family planning challenges among the youth
Introduction:In Malawi the change of paradigm from women focus into inclusive family planning, i.e. one which emphasises a shared responsibility among men and women, and boys and girls, has faced some challenges. For a long time family planning has been targeted on women, then women and men, and just of late on the youth. It is not surprising that a lot of research and literature has provided knowledge biased towards men and women and particularly married couples. This has originated from the misconceptions that are deep rooted in many communities in Malawi: for example, sex is no mention among the adolescence and the youth. We have for a long time lived in an ideal world of denying the truth that the youth and the adolescence discuss, have the feelings and indeed do have sex (Degrees, 2012).Statistics have indicated a figure of 49% of our youth being in sexual relationship before they reach 18 years of age (Giva, 2016). The implementation of family planning interventions has been faced with various challenges due to some practices of communities in Malawi. For instance, resistance of men in a family due to diminishing libido, belief of having many children, religious teachings had been among the most highlighted concerns. From the religious perspective, the targets of family planning are married couples; for example a church would not come in open and talk of family planning to youth. These believes are noted by the youth and no wonder when it comes to sexual issues they make sure that it is well encapsulated in secret jargons and discussed in isolated places where there are only girls or boys; away from any elder person and not even their brothers or sisters. It is not surprising that over time the government and supporting partners have realized risks that Malawi is prone to with the abandonment of this significant group of youth which is about 54% of its population (Malawi Government, 2015). Increased drop out in schools especially among girls, high maternal death among the young mothers, increased poverty levels and high HIV-infection rates are some of concerns that lead to the need for family planning among youth. All these mean a domed Malawi as there could be no future without the youth who are leading maternal death (Mhango, 2013); no future with parents who cannot support their children; and no future with youth who cannot actively contribute to economic activities of their own country. In reacting to this scare, the government through the Ministry of Health (MoH) and supporting partners such as UNFPA, YONEKO, Population Services International (PSI), Banja la Mtsogolo, and USAID (USAID, 2013)has engaged in a number of programmes aimed at addressing the situation by coming up with interventions that deliberately target the youth. Different implementers have identified target locations and preferred modes of delivery depending on the nature of problems, and other factors like literacy. Like in many developing countries the common approaches has been community groups, radio and television programmes, print media promotions, open events for sensitization, and school programmes. Radio and of late TV have been highly rated because of having wider audience (Henry Chimbali, 2015). For examples, PSI-Malawi has faced the youth head-on through concerts and publications themed on family planning; MoH and other players like USAID, UNPFA and Banja La Mtsogolo have invested in youth family planning services either by establishing special sections within existing structures to cutter for the youth or through radio and television programmes. In other countries like South Africa, India, Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda the governments and various stakeholders have invested in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) as a tool in effective service delivery in prevention of early motherhood and poor family planning, sexual transmitted diseases and maternal deaths. Tanzania, for example, has utilised ICT in the family planning through the implementation of mobile for reproductive health (M4RH) by FHI360. It is interesting to note that half of the users are said to be the youth. South Africa has Hi4LIFE, web platform for ensuring the health information accessibility for all though mobiles (hi4LIFE, 2016); although the system is not very interactive but it provides huge sexual information resources targeting the youth. For decades, research has shown that a radio has been the "Africa's medium" with extensive audience reach estimated in millions (Wits University, 2011). Malawi has not been exceptional; the proliferation of radio stations just after multi party dispensation in 1993 has indeed made radio as the medium for information distribution. In the past decade, television broadcasting has complemented the radio. Such programmes in Malawi as Straight Talk, Tikuferanji and various documentaries have been the key to reaching audience including youth. Despite the fact that previous studies had shown positive indications in that through these media almost 52% and 74% of young female and male respectively, had been exposed to family planning (E2A, 2014), it has been feared that the sensitivity of our cultural practices makes it hard for interventions made through radio and television programmes to be effective in the delivery of youth friendly family planning services. This study was aimed at finding facts to ascertain the fears that our cultural practices are still a stumbling block to efforts towards population management. It was also aimed at establishing how ICT particularly mobile applications can fill that gap that is created by this cultural issue. The research was guided by two primary interrelated questions:(1) Are the times that the family planning programmes are aired convenient for the target audience?(2) How can mobile technologies play a role in the eradication of problems that are exacerbated by our sensitivity cultural practices?
African Journal of Reproductive Health, 2012
Reproductive health problems are a challenge affecting young people in Nigeria. Education as a Vaccine (EVA) implements the My Question and Answer Service, using mobile phones to provide sexual and reproductive health (SRH) information and services. Use of the service by adolescent girls and young women is low. Focus group discussions were held with 726 females to assess their access to mobile phones, as well as the barriers and limitations to the use of their phones to seek SRH information and services. Results demonstrate high mobile phone access but limited use of phones to access SRH information and services. Barriers to use of these services include cost of service for young female clients, request for socio-demographic information that could break anonymity, poor marketing and publicity, socio-cultural beliefs and expectations of young girls, individual personality and beliefs, as well as infrastructural/network quality. It is therefore recommended that these barriers be adequ...
BMC Medical Research Methodology
Background Adolescent pregnancies and sexually-transmitted infections continue to impact 15 – 19-year-olds across the globe. The lack of sexual reproductive health information (SRH) in resource-limited settings due to cultural and societal attitudes towards adolescent SRH could be contributing to the negative outcomes. Innovative approaches, including mobile phone technologies, are needed to address the need for reliable adolescent SRH information. Objective The study aimed to co-design a Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) based mobile app prototype to provide confidential adolescent SRH information on-demand and evaluate the mobile app’s usability and user experience. Methods A human-centered design methodology was applied. This practice framework allowed the perspectives and feedback of adolescent users to be included in the iterative design process. To participate, an adolescent must have been 15 to 19 years old, resided in Kibra and would be able to access a mobile p...
Smart Teens with Reproductive Health Digital Pocket Book
ABDIMAS: Jurnal Pengabdian Masyarakat, 2022
Adolescents are one of the population groups that are quickly influencing by negative and positive information flows. Adolescent problems related to reproductive health often stem from a lack of information, understanding and awareness to achieve reproductive health. The importance of knowledge about reproductive health will help adolescents make decisions whether they will take healthy or unhealthy actions against themselves. Efforts to create healthy adolescents are to disseminate information through an application, namely an android-based digital pocketbook on reproductive health. This community service activity aims to provide education to adolescents and increase adolescent knowledge about reproductive health. The method used in this educational activity is through three stages, firstly giving a questionnaire as a pretest, secondly, providing education about reproductive health, and thirdly giving a post-test questionnaire. This activity increases adolescent knowledge about rep...
2021
Introduction: Mobile health (mHealth) programmes offer opportunities to improve sexual and reproductive health (SRH) for adolescents by providing information. Researchers define mHealth as a “medical and public health practice supported by mobile devices”. mHealth is increasingly used to deliver health interventions including adolescent SRH. However, knowledge gaps remain regarding the utilization and effectiveness of these programmes. This study reports findings of a qualitative study carried out in Homabay County, Kenya. Purpose: We aimed to establish if mHealth would facilitate access of SRH information by adolescents, and whether adolescents would participate in SRH-related content delivered on mobile phones, based on their experiences and existing constraints.Methods: This was a qualitative exploratory study seeking to gain an understanding of the experiences of adolescents concerning their mobile phone ownership, access and use. The study population included adolescents, paren...
Social Sciences
Mobile health (mHealth) programs offer opportunities to improve the sexual and reproductive health (SRH) of adolescents by providing information. This paper reports the findings of a study carried out in Homabay County, Kenya, to assess stakeholders’ perspectives on access to and use of mobile phones by adolescents for SRH education. We aimed to establish whether mobile phones could facilitate access to SRH information by adolescents and the barriers to be addressed. This was a qualitative exploratory study involving adolescents, parents, teachers, health care workers, and community health volunteers. Data were collected through focus group discussions (FGDs) and key informant interviews (KIIs), and were analyzed through thematic and content analysis. Respondents lauded mHealth as an effective and efficient approach to adolescent SRH education with a potential to promote the learning of useful SRH information to influence their behavior formation. Respondents pointed out bottlenecks...
2020
Background: Digital health usability assessments can help explain how well mobile health (mHealth) apps targeting young people with sexual and reproductive health (SRH) information performed and whether the intended purpose was achieved. However, few digital health assessments have been conducted to evaluate young people's perceptions regarding mHealth system interactions and content relevance on a wide range of SRH topics. In addition, the majority of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) have focused on push messaging platforms; therefore, the mHealth field lacks sufficient RCTs investigating on-demand mHealth SRH platforms. Objective: The objective of this study was to explore young people's experiences using an on-demand SRH mHealth platform in Kenya. Methods: We used qualitative data related to the usability of an mHealth platform, Adolescent/Youth Reproductive Mobile Access and Delivery Initiatives for Love and Life Outcome (ARMADILLO), collected at the end of the intervention period. A total of 30 in-depth interviews (IDIs) were held with the intervention participants (15 women and 15 men) to elicit their experiences, opinions, and perspectives on the design and content of the ARMADILLO platform. The study participants were randomly selected from a list of intervention arm participants to participate in the IDIs. The interviews were later transcribed verbatim, translated into English, and coded and analyzed thematically using NVivo version 12 software (QSR International). Results: Respondents reported varied user experiences and levels of satisfaction, ranging from ease of use by the majority of the respondents to systematic frustrations that prevented some participants from progressing to other stages. Interesting features of the mHealth platform included the immediate response participants received when requesting messages, weekly remunerated quizzes, and perceived ability of educative and informative content and messages to change behaviors. Proposed enhancements to the platform included revising some concepts and words for easy understanding and increasing the interactivity of the platform,
2013
elemedicine, or eHealth, by definition encompasses the communication of health practices via technology, and the advent of the internet and mobile phone technology brought seemingly endless possibilities for telemedicine. Such technologies may be an instrumental tool to promote health in hard to engage groups, especially young people, as interventions that make use of the internet tend to influence young people since they frequently use the internet to find information pertaining to their health. Generally, youths are put off by more traditional means of engaging with health care services, and this applies more so to accessing Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) services. The general consensus is that most youths appreciate the anonymity, confidentiality and convenience factors associated with accessing SRH information from the internet. The thesis work undertaken and documented in this report is aimed at systematically exploring the potential that is offered by web-based and mobile phone technology in the promotion of Sexual & Reproductive Health of high school aged youths in Zimbabwe. Youth SRH services are sparsely available in Zimbabwe and the exploitation of available and future technologies in youth SRH services has not been widely explored. The use of mobile phones in Zimbabwe is on the rise and broadband internet is becoming widely available, thus this technology can be utilized efficiently to offer services that are aimed at accurately informing the young people of Zimbabwe about their sexual and reproductive health. From the research carried out, only 10% of youths have accessed available SRH services, but given that 97% and 86% of survey participants have access to a mobile phone and the internet respectively, it would suggest that employing an SRH intervention that exploits this readily available media would be more effective. Taking into account perspective user requirements and the technological environment in Zimbabwe, the Youth Sex Health Online (YSHO) web-based SRH clinic and the complimentary Just Ask! Text messaging services were designed. YSHO is aimed at being a non-commercial one-stop shop for all adolescent SRH needs that meets identified needs in a relevant, efficient and effective manner. Feedback on the mock-up of the proposed service suggests that the proposed service is effective and of particular benefit to its intended users.
Jurnal Keperawatan Soedirman, 2018
Introduction: The increase of adolescent population globally and nationally makes adolescent as vulnerable group to health problems, especially reproductive health. Adolescent has curiosities, like challenges, and dare to take risks. The impact is unwanted pregnancy, sexual transmition diseases, and abortion. Therefore, there is a need of KIE media for adolescent reproductive health based on information technology: smart phone applications.Objective: To identify research articles on smart phone use as KIE media for adolescent reproductive health.Method: Literature study in 20 journals through Google Scholar, Proquest, and EBSCO in the last 5 years, keywords adolescent reproductive health, health education, smartphone application. Data are analyzed in tables contain title, author, year, methodology, result, and recommendation.Result: Smartphone application as KIE media for adolescent reproductive health effectively increased the connection of adolescents with parents and health worke...
Reproductive Health
Background Globally, reproductive health programs have used mHealth to provide sexual and reproductive health (SRH) education and services to young people, through diverse communication channels. However, few attempts have been made to systematically review the mHealth programs targeted to improve young people SRH in low-and-middle-income countries (LMICs). This review aims to identify a range of different mHealth solutions that can be used for improving young people SRH in LMICs and highlight facilitators and barriers for adopting mHealth interventions designed to target SRH of young people. Methods Databases including PubMed, CINAHL Plus, Science Direct, Cochrane Central, and grey literature were searched between January 01, 2005 and March 31, 2020 to identify various types of mHealth interventions that are used to improve SRH services for young people in LMICs. Of 2948 titles screened after duplication, 374 potentially relevant abstracts were obtained. Out of 374 abstracts, 75 ab...