Trial reportPloS one2016
Evaluation of a mHealth Data Quality Intervention to Improve Documentation of Pregnancy Outcomes by Health Surveillance Assistants in Malawi: A Cluster Randomized Trial.
Trial report in PloS one, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 31 citations in OpenAlex.
- Routine Health Information System (RHIS) improvements for strengthened health system management.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2020Pooled it
- Mobile Phone-Based Behavioral Interventions in Pregnancy to Promote Maternal and Fetal Health in High-Income Countries: Systematic Review.JMIR mHealth and uHealth · 2020Pooled it
- A systematic review of vital events tracking by community health agents.Global health action · 2019Pooled it
- Assessing the impact of a facility-based digital intervention on district-level data quality in rural Burkina Faso.BMJ global health · 2026Article
- Article
- Digital Solutions for Community and Primary Health Workers: Lessons From Implementations in Africa.Frontiers in digital health · 2022Review
- Article
- Targeted Short Message Service-Based Intervention to Improve Routine Immunization Reporting in Bauchi State, Nigeria, 2016.The Pan African medical journal · 2021Article
- 'Do you trust those data?'-a mixed-methods study assessing the quality of data reported by community health workers in Kenya and Malawi.Health policy and planning · 2020Article
- Community-based surveillance: A scoping review.PloS one · 2019Article
- Mobile health and the performance of maternal health care workers in low- and middle-income countries: A realist review.International journal of care coordination · 2018Article
- Ongoing training of community health workers in low-income andmiddle-income countries: a systematic scoping review of the literature.BMJ open · 2018Article
- Using community-based reporting of vital events to monitor child mortality: Lessons from rural Ghana.PloS one · 2018Article
- "Real-Time" Monitoring of Under-Five Mortality: A Vision Tempered by Reality.PLoS medicine · 2016Review
- Practical issues in the measurement of child survival in health systems trials: experience developing a digital community-based mortality surveillance programme in rural Nepal.BMJ global health · 2016Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundWhile community health workers are being recognized as an integral work force with growing responsibilities, increased demands can potentially affect motivation and performance. The ubiquity of mobile phones, even in hard-to-reach communities, has facilitated the pursuit of novel approaches to support community health workers beyond traditional modes of supervision, job aids, in-service training, and material compensation. We tested whether supportive short message services (SMS) could improve reporting of pregnancies and pregnancy outcomes among community health workers (Health Surveillance Assistants, or HSAs) in Malawi. METHODS AND
findingsWe designed a set of one-way SMS that were sent to HSAs on a regular basis during a 12-month period. We tested the effectiveness of the cluster-randomized intervention in improving the complete documentation of a pregnancy. We defined complete documentation as a pregnancy for which a specific outcome was recorded. HSAs in the treatment group received motivational and data quality SMS. HSAs in the control group received only motivational SMS. During baseline and intervention periods, we matched reported pregnancies to reported outcomes to determine if reporting of matched pregnancies differed between groups and by period. The trial is registered as ISCTRN24785657.
conclusionsStudy results show that the mHealth intervention improved the documentation of matched pregnancies in both the treatment (OR 1.31, 95% CI: 1.10-1.55, p<0.01) and control (OR 1.46, 95% CI: 1.11-1.91, p = 0.01) groups relative to the baseline period, despite differences in SMS content between groups. The results should be interpreted with caution given that the study was underpowered. We did not find a statistically significant difference in matched pregnancy documentation between groups during the intervention period (OR 0.94, 95% CI: 0.63-1.38, p = 0.74). mHealth applications have the potential to improve the tracking and data quality of pregnancies and pregnancy outcomes, particularly in low-resource settings.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.