Mobile health (mhealth) intervention for family planning program: An evidence from systematic review

High number of unintended pregnancies in developing countries occur in women who have unmet need for modern family planning. To fill this gap, several approaches have been implemented including the use of mobile phone. Some studies about mobile health (mHealth) and family planning were conducted, but there is no systematic review was made to evaluate the effectiveness. This paper aim to characterize existing evidence of the use mHealth for family planning program. For this review, published original articles written in English from last 10 years were extracted from leading databases (Pubmed, Sciencedirect, and Scopus). Relevance keywords have been applied i.e. “mHealth AND family planning” and “mobile phone AND family planning”. The review structure was conducted in accordance with PRISMA guideline for systematic review. We included eight papers that passed critical appraisal process. Among them, 75% papers used randomized controlled trial and 25% used cohort as their study design. Several intervention strategies were used, included text messages (37,5%), text messages and application (37,5%), phone calls (12,5%), and voice messages (12,5%). The studies purposes were to evaluate the use of mHealth to improve knowledge and change contraceptive-related behavior. The findings showed that 62,5% studies were able to improve contraceptive use while 12,5% studies were not. Additionally 25% studies showed that mHealth might delay pregnancy and 12,5% studies were able to increase knowledge. Mobile Health intervention might support family planning program by improving knowledge and contraceptive use, but factors influencing contraceptive-related behavior changes should be further studied.