Abstract
BackgroundKey barriers to healthcare use in rural Ghana include those of economic, social, cultural and institutional. Amid this, though rarely recognised in Ghanaian healthcare settings, mHealth technology has emerged as a viable tool for lessening most healthcare barriers in rural areas due to the high mobile phone penetration and possession rate. This qualitative study provides an exploratory assessment of the role of mHealth in reducing healthcare barriers in rural areas from the perspective of healthcare users and providers.MethodSemi-structured interviews were conducted with 30 conveniently selected healthcare users and 15 purposively selected healthcare providers within the Birim South District in the Eastern Region of Ghana between June 2017 and April 2018. Data were thematically analysed and normative standpoints of participants were presented as quotations.ResultsThe main findings were that all the healthcare users had functioning mobile phones, however, their knowledge and awareness about mHealth was low. Meanwhile, rural health care users and providers were willing to use mHealth services involving phone call in the future as they perceived the technology to play an important role in lessening healthcare barriers. Nevertheless, factors such as illiteracy, language barrier, trust, quality of care, and mobile network connectivity were perceived as barriers associated with using mHealth in rural Ghana.ConclusionThe support for mHealth service is an opportunity for the development of synergistic relationship between health policy planners and mobile network companies in Ghana to design efficient communication and connectivity networks, accessible, localised, user-friendly and cost-effective mobile phone-based health programmes to assist in reducing healthcare barriers in rural Ghana.
Highlights
Key barriers to healthcare use in rural Ghana include those of economic, social, cultural and institutional
The support for Mobile Health (mHealth) service is an opportunity for the development of synergistic relationship between health policy planners and mobile network companies in Ghana to design efficient communication and connectivity networks, accessible, localised, user-friendly and cost-effective mobile phone-based health programmes to assist in reducing healthcare barriers in rural Ghana
The main findings were that healthcare users had low knowledge and awareness about the use of mobile phone for healthcare and as a result hardly use their phones for medical purposes
Summary
Key barriers to healthcare use in rural Ghana include those of economic, social, cultural and institutional. One technology that has emerged and is heavilly utilised especially in developed countries is mHealth [4, 6] This innovation involves using mobile phones to access formal healthcare from remote areas either through instant messaging for treatment observance, meetings over cell phones, interactive voice response (IVR) frameworks, and video conferencing between patients (healthcare users) and providers including medical doctors and nurses [6, 7]. This technology is proving effective by intensifying access to basic healthcare and health education in the developed world, and in developing countries where several barriers exist in the health sector [8,9,10,11]. This is because mHealth is considered cost-effective as it removes the task of travelling from distant places to hospitals and health centres, especially in rural areas where health facilities are mostly located in large towns [1, 2, 12]
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