Abstract:
Objective To evaluate the impact of different interventions on cognitive and behavioral changes toward maternal health services.
Methods Block randomization was used to allocate 1 400 participants selected from 3 hospitals into one control group(routine service) and three intervention groups(WeChat group, Specialist team group and We Chat + Specialist team group) from December 9
th 2019 and January 12
th 2020. Self-developed questionnaires were used to evaluate the impact of the different interventions on cognitive and behavioral changes toward maternal health services pre-and post-intervention.
Results The 3 intervention groups all reported higher rate of cognitive and behavioral change toward maternal and child health care. Compared with control group, We Chat +Specialist team group improved awareness of maternal health services in terms of examination in early pregnancy(71. 80%
vs.97. 13%,
χ2= 84. 87,
P>0. 001), antenatal examination(90. 41%
vs.96. 26%,
χ2= 9. 564,
P= 0. 002), minimum five check-ups(90. 70%
vs.95. 40%,
χ2= 5. 932,
P= 0. 015), preference of vaginal delivery(90. 70%
vs.96. 84%,
χ2= 11. 196,
P= 0. 001)and 42 th days examination postpartum(68. 31%
vs.94. 54%,
χ2= 78. 927,
P<0. 001). Specialist team intervention group improved awareness in all five aspects except for antenatal examination. We Chat intervention group only had higher awareness rate than that of control group in terms of examination in early pregnancy and 42 th days examination postpartum. In addition, the rates of establishing cards in early pregnancy and postnatal checkup among We Chat + Specialist team group was the highest(97. 7% &100. 00%), followed by the Specialist team group(94. 83% & 98. 85%). There were no significant differences between the We Chat intervention group and control group in the rate of establishing cards in early pregnancy(90. 20%
vs.87. 21%,
χ2= 1. 545,
P>0. 05), however, the former had a significantly higher rate of postnatal checkup(95. 10%
vs.91. 28%,
χ2= 3. 980,
P<0. 05).
Conclusion We Chat and Specialist team intervention, particular the combination of both services will effectively improve pregnant women's cognition and behaviors toward maternal health services.