Awareness of Mobile Health (mHealth) Interventions Among Antenatal Clinic Attendees in Primary Health Care Facilities in Ilorin South, Kwara State, Nigeria

Abstract

The successful implementation of mobile health (mHealth) interventions in antenatal care depends not only on provider-side factors but equally on whether pregnant women, as the intended beneficiaries of such interventions, are themselves aware that mobile phones can serve as a channel for receiving maternal health information, reminders, and support. This study examined the level of awareness of mHealth interventions among antenatal clinic attendees in Primary Health Care (PHC) facilities in Ilorin South Local Government Area, Kwara State, Nigeria. A descriptive cross-sectional survey design was adopted, with a sample of 325 antenatal clinic attendees selected through a multistage sampling technique combining random selection of facilities, proportionate allocation, and systematic selection of respondents. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics and one-sample t-tests against a criterion mean of 3.00, at the 0.05 level of significance. Findings revealed a generally high overall level of awareness (grand mean = 3.51, SD = 1.01), significantly above the criterion mean, t (324) = 9.10, p < .001. At the item level, awareness of SMS reminders recorded the highest mean (3.84) and was significantly above the criterion (p < .001), while awareness of pregnancy-related mobile applications recorded the lowest mean (3.11) and, notably, did not differ significantly from the criterion mean (p = .088), indicating that application-specific awareness in this sample is not statistically distinguishable from a neutral midpoint. This pattern is consistent with, though not a direct test of, the digital divide literature documenting lower reach for smartphone-dependent technologies among lower-resource populations. The study concludes that antenatal clinic attendees in Ilorin South report considerably stronger, statistically confirmed awareness of SMS-based mHealth tools than of application-based tools, and recommends that mHealth implementation strategies in the study area prioritise SMS-based approaches as an immediate entry point, while further, targeted research directly measures smartphone ownership and digital literacy before application-based strategies are pursued.