JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Bangladeshi adolescents, who constitute a fifth of the country's population, experience barriers in accessing sexual and reproductive health (SRH) information. Previous studies have shown that mobile health (mHealth) interventions provide adolescents with timely access to evidence-based curricula, gamified, and interactive content, sessions, and information. The widespread adoption of mHealth technologies among adolescents and their willingness to embrace emerging technologies are encouraging specialists to employ mHealth approaches to share health information. Despite the high mobile phone usage among adolescents in Bangladesh, there are a few mHealth interventions specifically targeting their SRH needs.

Objective:

We aimed to assess changes in SRH knowledge and awareness among adolescents in Bangladesh following exposure to "Mukhorito", an interactive mobile app-based intervention.

Methods:

This pilot study employing a pre-post non-randomized experimental approach was conducted in three selected secondary schools in Feni, Bangladesh, from June 2023 to March 2024. 46 students from class 9 across the three schools were recruited, with a minimum of 10 per school. Bivariate analyses were performed to assess the association between SRH knowledge and awareness scores with other covariates. Significantly associated covariates for both scores were used in building the adjusted linear regression models.

Results:

The adjusted models indicated a significant improvement in the end-line group compared with the baseline group for both knowledge (1.2 units; 95% CI: 0.8-1.6 units) and awareness scores (1.0 units; 95% CI: 0.3-1.5 units), indicating a high level of intervention effect.

Conclusions:

These findings demonstrate the potential of mobile app-based innovations to improve adolescent SRH education within a national program in resource-constrained settings, specially where conventional methods may be less effective.