Mobile Phone Reminders (and Photovoice) for Routine Immunization in Nigeria - The MOPING Study

University of Putra Malaysia (UPM)

Status: Unknown

Conditions: Immunization; Infection

Treatments: Behavioral: Reminder module (SMS and Phone call); Behavioral: Photovoice

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT03402646

MOPING/V2/07/17

Details and patient eligibility

About

This study aims to implement and test the efficacy of photovoice, Short Messaging Service (SMS) and phone call reminders in improving childhood immunization coverage (uptake, timeliness and completion rates) and reducing incidence of vaccine-preventable diseases (VPDs) among infants in Nigeria

Full description

This will be a single-blind three-arm cluster randomized controlled trial involving post-partum mothers and/or caregivers of infants (age 0-12months) attending immunization clinics in 12 randomly selected Primary Health Care Centres (clusters) across Sokoto, Jigawa, Kano, Ogun, Oyo and Lagos States of Nigeria. Additionally, a photovoice methodology will be implemented in 6 community clusters (one in each State) involving group discussions between community members (pregnant women in their third trimester, parents/caregivers of infants age 0-12 months), community leaders, service providers and policy makers on benefits of timely immunization and consequences of non-vaccination. Parent-infant pairs will be followed up for 12 months during which SMS and phone call immunization clinic appointment reminders will be provided to mothers and/or caregivers in intervention arm 1, and photovoice intervention provided at study commencement to participants in intervention arm 2. Respondents in the control group would receive standard care (routine paper-based appointment scheduling alone). The investigators will document and compare immunization uptake (all doses and vaccines), timeliness of receipt and completion rates of scheduled immunization between the three groups, as well as incidence of VPDs between the groups using multivariate statistical analyses.

Enrollment: 1,813 estimated patients

Sex: All

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Mothers/caregivers of healthy infants (age 0 - 12 months) who:

  1. Have a mobile phone access
  2. Received antenatal care and/or delivered their babies in a hospital
  3. Plans to receive immunizations at the selected PHCs

• Purposively-selected community sample of pregnant women in their third trimester, parents/caregivers of infants, providers, community gatekeepers and policy makers

Exclusion criteria

1. Parents of infants requiring hospital admission due to significant illness, congenital deformity/malformation and prematurity
2. Foreigners

Trial design

Primary purpose: Health Services Research

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Double Blind

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1,813 participants in 3 patient groups

Reminder module (SMS and Phone call)

Experimental group

Description:

Intervention will consist of a "Reminder module" delivered via SMS and telephone calls by an automated, customized software application. This will include standardized SMS reminder 3 days prior to scheduled immunization clinic appointments, telephone call reminders a day prior to scheduled clinic appointment (4 to 6pm) (in addition to standard care - routine paper-based appointment scheduling and counselling by care providers) for routine immunization. Reminders will be provided consistently for all immunization clinic appointments until the child turns 12 months of age.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Reminder module (SMS and Phone call)

Photovoice

Experimental group

Description:

In two small groups of 15 participants each per state, purposively selected pregnant women in their third trimester and parents of infants aged 0-12 months in the community, as well as community leaders, service providers and policy makers will be exposed to photographs (taken from other sources) of debilitating consequences of non-immunization, which will form the basis of the group discussions, knowledge sharing and consensus-building sessions, each lasting about 45 minutes to 1 hour. Each community cluster will be linked to a PHC.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Photovoice

Control

No Intervention group

Description:

Respondents in control clusters will receive standard care only - comprising routine paper-based appointment scheduling