A Mobile Health Intervention to Increase Uptake of Prenatal Care in Syrian Refugee Population in Turkey

Background: 12 million Syrians have been forcibly displaced from their homes since the start of Syrian Civil War in 2011. Despite Turkey providing free healthcare services through national insurance to nearly 4 million refugees that it hosts, pregnant Syrian women are less likely to attend prenatal visits and more likely to die during and after labor. An increase in the uptake of prenatal care may improve quality of life through healthy pregnancies and safer labor conditions in this population with double vulnerability.

Mobile phone-based reminders have been shown in randomized controlled trials and systematic reviews to increase the uptake of various services, including prenatal care. Mobile phone penetration is high among Syrian refugees in Turkey and qualitative studies demonstrate that mobile health interventions are acceptable and feasible for Syrian refugees.

Primary objective: To evaluate the impact of mobile phone-based reminders on the uptake of prenatal care among pregnant Syrian refugee women. More specifically, the study assesses the effectiveness of mobile phone-based reminders by measuring the percent increase in the number of prenatal appointments attended by intervention arm participants compared to the control arm participants.

Study design: This is a behavioral intervention study using an un-blinded, parallel groups, randomized controlled study design.

Primary Outcome:

The primary outcome of this study is the number of medical visits, following the initial baseline prenatal care visit, over the 6 month period prior to childbirth.

Secondary outcomes:

Secondary outcomes are based on the Sociodemographic and Health History form. The form gathers information about demographics of the participants (age, education, employment, marital status, number of children) and health history (previous pregnancies, delivery methods, miscarriages, stillborn, chronic conditions and medications. We will further examine these risk factors on the number of medical visits during the study period.