A systematic review of the factors that hinder the scale up of mobile health technologies in antenatal care programmes in sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

Background: There is weak evidence on the sustainability of mobile Health (mHealth) interventions in antenatal care programmes in sub-Saharan Africa. This study reviews the factors that hinder the scale up of mobile (mHealth) technologies in antenatal care programmes in sub-Saharan Africa.

Methods: Using PubMed, the Cochrane Library, and Science Direct a systematic review was conducted during the period July–October 2018 of peer-reviewed literature on mHealth innovations in antenatal care programmes in sub-Saharan Africa. Two review authors independently assessed all studies against the inclusion criteria.

Results: The searches identified a total of 144 resources for screening, of which 15 articles met the inclusion criteria.

Conclusion: The absence of robust data to support a scale up to sustainability, such as costing and cost-effectiveness data, has hindered a transition beyond the pilot phase and for achieving economies of scale. Limited experience with mHealth technologies in landlocked and underdeveloped countries such as South Sudan, Rwanda and Somalia has also slowed down scale up. Low mobile penetration and high cell phone rates has rendered the scale up of mHealth interventions unsustainable.

Keywords:

• antenatal care
• mHealth
• technologies
• sub-Saharan Africa

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 ENTREQ consists of five main domains: introduction, methods and methodology, literature search and selection, appraisal, and synthesis of findings.