Will district health centres use preloaded cell phones for pre-referral phone calls for women in labour: a randomized pilot study at Mbarara Regional Referral Hospital in southwest Uganda
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Date
2019
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Canadian Journal of Public Health
Abstract
Uganda is one of the developing countries with high maternal and infant mortality rates; maternal, 336 per 100,000 live births and infant, 43 per 1000 births respectively in 2016 (UDHS 2016). Adverse maternal-fetal outcomes in developing countries are primarily related to three delays: time to decision to seek health care, access to health services, and timely intervention at the health facility (Pacagnella et al. 2014; Thaddeus and Maine 1994). Given the high mortality rates in Uganda, there is a big
need for improvement. Cell phone technology has been used in other African settings to potentially improve maternity care
and referral systems (Oyeyemi and Wynn 2015; Lund et al. 2014; Murray and Pearson 2006). However, these interventions
have centred on providing pregnant women with cell phones, an expensive intervention. Resources for such a large
scale intervention are not readily available in our setting in southwest Uganda. We therefore piloted a more modest intervention,
providing a mobile phone and recharged credit to the local health centre for the purpose of a pre-referral phone call to a dedicated number at the major regional referral hospital.
Description
Keywords
Pre-referral phone call, Obstetric referral, Maternal-fetal outcomes
Citation
Kanyesigye, H., Muhwezi, O., Kazungu, C., Kemigisha, E., & Woolcott, C. (2019). Will district health centres use preloaded cell phones for pre-referral phone calls for women in labour: a randomized pilot study at Mbarara Regional Referral Hospital in southwest Uganda. Canadian Journal of Public Health, 110(4), 520-522. https://doi.org/10.17269/s41997-019-00222-3