Assessing the influence of digital technologies on antenatal care visits in Zimbabwe: insights from 2019 Zimbabwe Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey

Background and objective

To provide good health and well-being as established by the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3, access to digital technologies can act as conduits to achieve such progress in a population. As guided by the World Health Organization, antenatal care (ANC) attendance is one of the measures promoted to curtail the global health burden of maternal and infant mortality. ANC services are seldom utilized to their full potential in Zimbabwe. This study explores if any of the women's digital technology characteristics were associated with antenatal care visits.

Methods

The study analyzed population-based cross-sectional data with a subsample of 1 932 women aged 15‒49 years from the 2019 Zimbabwe Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey. Test of associations with chi-square test, bivariate, and multivariate multinomial logistic regression analyses were used to examine the predictors of adequate (4‒7) and optimal (≥ 8) ANC visits relative to undesirable (1‒3) antenatal care visits among women who had given births 2 years before the survey.

Results

The results indicate that 64.5% (1246/1 932) of the women attained adequate ANC while about 9.8% (189/1 932) attained optimal ANC. Reading a newspaper/magazine at least once a week (odds ratio [OR] 1.73, β’ = 0.551, t = 2.030, P = 0.043) and watching television at least once a week (OR 1.72, β’ = 0.545, t = 2.454, P = 0.015), listening to the radio less than once a week (OR 1.28, β’ = 0.247, t = 1.750, P = 0.080), and owning a mobile phone (OR 1.48, β’ = 0.394, t = 3.020, P = 0.003) were positively associated with adequate ANC. Optimal ANC was significantly associated with women being able to read a newspaper at least once a week (OR 2.93, β’ = 1.074, t = 3.120, P = 0.002), listen to the radio less than once a week (OR 2.07, β’ = 0.73, t = 2.700, P = 0.007) and have ownership of a mobile phone (OR 1.88, β’ = 0.631, t = 2.620, P = 0.009).

Conclusion

Access to a newspaper, radio, television, and mobile phone were important predictors of a woman's ability to achieve her ANC attendance. Policies to improve the knowledge of ANC packages can be facilitated using digital technology to achieve adequate and preferably optimal ANC in Zimbabwe. It is important to improve digital infrastructure to support digital technologies in providing ANC services.