Information Communication Technology: Mobile Phones Keep Women With HIV in Contact With Care
 |
|
Banners in the Philippines promote the FamPlan Hotline, a service that replied to questions about reproductive health and HIV by sending text messages to mobile phones. Text messaging shows great potential for providers to reach and inform women with HIV.
(Photo: Academy for Educational Development Social Acceptance Project-Family Planning)
|
Mobile telephones continue to become more common in developing countries. In 2000 there were an estimated 46 mobile phones per 1,000 people. By 2005 the ratio had climbed to 258 phones per 1,000 people (243). This growing coverage suggests that mobile phones can provide a wide-reaching method of transmitting information, particularly through text messaging (also known as Short Messaging Service, or SMS) (162). Text messaging provides a way to send information at low cost either to individuals or, through automated messaging, to groups (162, 203).
Pilot projects in reproductive health, HIV, and other areas of health care show the potential of text messaging to help providers reach and serve women with HIV in areas where mobile phones are common (127, 162, 203):
- A hotline in the Philippines known as the “FamPlan Hotline” responded to people’s questions about reproductive health and HIV sent via text, voice, and e-mail messaging. Press conferences, publicity events, public service announcements on radio and television, and leaflets and stickers publicized the hotline (13). Over two years the hotline received more than 65,000 questions on topics such as reproductive anatomy, family planning, pregnancy, sexuality, and HIV. Some 94% of these questions arrived via text messaging (162). Since most mobile phone users pay the equivalent of just US$0.02 per text message, the hotline was an inexpensive way for people to get direct answers to their specific questions (13).
- In 2002 a doctor in Cape Town, South Africa created the service On-Cue Compliance to help tuberculosis (TB) patients take their medications on time. For US$1.50 per patient per month, the company sends computer-generated reminder messages to patients’ mobile phones (17, 93). An evaluation found the program to be a more cost-effective and convenient way to improve adherence than directly observed therapy, which requires clinic visits (93). Now On Cue also provides reminder messages to TB patients in Australia, Belgium, and the United Kingdom (17).
- A company in the United Kingdom launched a text messaging service called “My Pill” in 2005. This service sends text messages to women at the same time each day reminding them to take their oral contraceptive pill (85). To sign up, women send a text message to “My Pill” indicating the date that they take the first pill in a cycle and the time of day that they take their pills. The charge for the service appears on clients’ monthly mobile phone bills (85).
Family planning and HIV-care providers could apply similar strategies to their own work. Possibilities include sending messages reminding women when to take their ARV medications, appointment reminders for when it is time for a contraceptive injection, or follow-up messages encouraging clients to return to the clinic to get their HIV or STI test results. Programs could offer to answer clients’ specific questions about family planning and HIV via text messages. Also, programs could use text messaging to keep in touch with staff in the field—for example, to answer their technical questions on the spot, to alert providers to staff meetings, or to send informational reminders, such as “Most women with HIV can use IUDs.”
|
Order this report
Download PDF
E-mail this page 
See Companion INFO Report: “Women and HIV: Questions Answered”