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. 2024 Feb 12:12:20503121231224568.
doi: 10.1177/20503121231224568. eCollection 2024.

Healthcare workers' perceptions about the use of mobile health technologies in public health facilities in Lagos, Nigeria

Oluwatobi Shekoni  1 , Synne Iversen  1 , Gabriela J Diaz  1   2 , Anders Aune  1   2 , Peter Odion Ubuane  3 , Zainab Imam  3 , Beate André  1
Affiliations

Healthcare workers' perceptions about the use of mobile health technologies in public health facilities in Lagos, Nigeria

Oluwatobi Shekoni et al. SAGE Open Med. .

Abstract

Background: Mobile health has enormous potential in healthcare due to the increasing use of mobile phones in low- and middle-income countries; its effective deployment, uptake, and utilization may result in improved health outcomes, including a reduction in neonatal deaths. However, there is a suboptimal uptake of mobile health technologies among healthcare workers in low-resource settings like Nigeria, which are often context-specific.

Objective: To investigate healthcare workers' perceptions of mobile health technologies in public health facilities in Lagos, Nigeria.

Method: A qualitative study was conducted, and data were collected through six focus group discussions with 26 healthcare workers (doctors, nurses, and community health extension workers) from three public health facilities in Lagos, Nigeria. The collected data were analyzed using a thematic approach, where themes and subthemes were created.

Results: Although the participants acknowledged that mobile health enhances patient-provider communication and saves time, they identified altering of healthcare workers' routine practices, information overload, power and network failure, skepticism, lack of trust, and concerns over diagnostic accuracy as potential barriers to its uptake.

Conclusion: Addressing healthcare workers' perceptions of mobile health technologies may enhance the deployment and uptake of such solutions in Nigeria and similar low-resource settings. Developers and implementers of such can use them to create new or enhance existing mobile health solutions to better meet the needs and requirements of healthcare workers in low- to middle-income health settings, such as Lagos, Nigeria.

Keywords: Nigeria; Picterus; healthcare workers; mHealth; neonatal health; neonatal jaundice; sub-Saharan Africa.

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Conflict of interest statement

The author(s) declared the following potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: AA is employed and holds shares of Picterus AS which is currently commercializing the Picterus® App. GJD is employed at Picterus AS. However, Picterus AS had no influence over the data collection, analysis, and writing of this report including the opinion herein expressed. Other authors have no financial relationship with Picterus AS and have no other potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Demonstration of the Picterus app. Source: Aune et al., 2020.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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