BackgroundVoluntary blood donation rates are low in sub-Saharan Africa. Sociobehavioral factors such as a belief that donated blood would be used for performing rituals deter people from donating blood. There is a need for culturally appropriate communication interventions to encourage individuals to donate blood. Health care interventions that use mobile phones have increased in developing countries, although many of them focus on SMS text messaging (short message service, SMS). A unique feature of mobile phones that has so far not been used for aiding blood donation is caller tunes. Caller tunes replace the ringing sound heard by a caller to a mobile phone before the called party answers the call. In African countries such as Ghana, instead of the typical ringing sound, a caller may hear a message or song. Despite the popularity of such caller tunes, there is a lack of empirical studies on their potential use for promoting blood donation.ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to use the technology acceptance model to explore the influence of the factors—perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, attitude, and free of cost—on intentions of blood or nonblood donors to download blood donation-themed caller tunes to promote blood donation, if available.MethodsA total of 478 blood donors and 477 nonblood donors were purposively sampled for an interviewer-administered questionnaire survey at blood donation sites in Accra, Ghana. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, exploratory factor analysis, and confirmatory factory analysis or structural equation modeling, leading to hypothesis testing to examine factors that determine intention to use caller tunes for blood donation among blood or nonblood donors who use or do not use mobile phone caller tunes.ResultsPerceived usefulness had a significant effect on intention to use caller tunes among blood donors with caller tunes (beta=.293, P<.001), blood donors without caller tunes (beta=.165, P=.02, nonblood donors with caller tunes (beta=.278, P<.001), and nonblood donors without caller tunes (beta=.164, P=.01). Attitudes had significant effect on intention to use caller tunes among blood donors without caller tunes (beta=.351, P<.001), nonblood donors with caller tunes (beta=.384, P<.001), nonblood donors without caller tunes (beta=.539, P<.001) but not among blood donors with caller tunes (beta=.056, P=.44). The effect of free-of-cost caller tunes on the intention to use for blood donation was statistically significant (beta=.169, P<.001) only in the case of nonblood donors without caller tunes, whereas this path was statistically not significant in other models.ConclusionsOur results provide empirical evidence for designing caller tunes to promote blood donation in Ghana. The study found that making caller tunes free is particularly relevant for nonblood donors with no caller tunes.
Background: Patient reporting of adverse drug reactions (ADRs) is low in low- and middle-income countries, in part because of poor awareness to report. With the increase in mobile subscription, mobile phones can be used as a platform to disseminate information on ADRs. The aim of this study was to qualitatively assess the potential of using mobile phone caller tunes (the message or sound the caller hears before the receiver answers the call) to encourage patient reporting of ADRs. Methods: A total of 38 key informant interviews and 12 focus group discussions (57 participants in groups of 4–5) were conducted in Accra, Ghana. The transcripts were analysed using key constructs of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) including perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and behavioural intention to use caller tunes for patient reporting of ADRs. Results: Respondents mentioned lack of knowledge on reporting ADRs, and their willingness to use mobile phone caller tunes to promote patient reporting of ADRs. Many respondents pointed out how ADRs usually led to discontinuity in medication use, usually without consultation with health professionals. Caller tunes were regarded an innovative, accessible and convenient platform to disseminate information on ADRs. Most respondents intended to use caller tunes with drug safety information to promote ADR reporting, particularly to help their friends and family members. Simplicity of the message, use of songs or messages in local languages and price of downloading the caller tunes were important considerations. Conclusion: There is a need for the creation and testing of caller tunes on ADRs in Ghana to promote patient or consumer reporting of ADRs. Further studies are needed to assess factors that could influence the creation and use of caller tunes to disseminate information on drug safety.
Despite many water, sanitation, hygiene (WASH) and other environmental health challenges in sub-Saharan Africa, little is known about interactions involving scientists, journalists and the public to aid public understanding of the relationship between WASH and health. Using purposive sampling, we conducted key informant interviews and focus group discussions with scientists, journalists and members of the public in Ghana and Uganda to identify issues associated with the promotion of public engagement with WASH and other environmental health issues. An inductive thematic analysis was used to explore the evidence, challenges and opportunities of public engagement. The effectiveness of public engagement was constrained by poor interactions between scientists and journalists and limited understanding among the public on WASH and other environmental health issues. Challenges identified included inadequate scientists–journalists collaborations, scientists' lack of time, pressure from media organizations and concerns about journalists' inadequate capacity to communicate environmental issues due to lack of training. Possible solutions included increased interactions, science communication training and using public information officers as knowledge brokers between scientists and journalists to boost public engagement with WASH and other environmental health issues. Our study contributes to the literature on the need to actively engage the public with WASH and other environmental health concerns.
Objectives Our main aim was to identify the factors that may influence consumers’ acceptance of mobile phone caller tunes to increase awareness of consumer reporting of suspected adverse drug reactions (ADRs). Mobile phone caller tunes — the songs or messages callers hear — are popular in Africa and Asia but have not been used to aid reporting of adverse drug reactions (ADRs). We also aimed to evaluate the psychometric properties of a survey instrument adapted for caller tunes and ADRs. Methods A cross‐sectional survey based on the technology acceptance model (TAM) was conducted among 486 non‐ADR‐themed caller tune users and 470 mobile phone users with no caller tunes in Accra, Ghana. Participants were purposively recruited from voluntary blood donation sites. After testing the validity and reliability of TAM constructs, a structural equation modelling approach was used to evaluate the factors that could influence the acceptance of caller tunes for increasing awareness of consumer reporting of ADRs. Key findings Perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use had significant positive effects on consumers' acceptance of caller tunes for increasing awareness of consumer reporting of ADRs. However, whereas free of cost had significant positive effects on the acceptance of caller tunes among those with non‐ADR‐themed caller tunes (β = 0.15, P = 0.006), it was not so for those lacking caller tunes (β = 0.05, P = 0.229). The survey instrument met acceptable validity and reliability criteria. Conclusions Our findings show that consumers would generally accept caller tunes on ADRs — if created — to aid consumer reporting of suspected ADRs, but there are research and practice considerations.
Background: Voluntary blood donation rates are low in sub-Saharan Africa. Socio-behavioral factors such as a belief that donated blood would be used for performing rituals deter people from donating blood. There is a need for culturally appropriate communication interventions to encourage individuals to donate blood. Healthcare interventions that use mobile phones have increased in developing countries although many of them focus on text messages. A unique feature of mobile phones that has so far not been used for aiding blood donation is "caller tunes". Caller tunes replace the "ring, ring, ring" sound heard by a caller to a mobile phone before the called-party answers the call. In African countries such as Ghana, instead of the typical "ring, ring ring" sound, a caller may hear a message or song. Despite the popularity of such caller tunes, there is lack of empirical studies on their potential use for promoting blood donation or other health behaviors.Objectives: This study used the technology acceptance model (TAM) to explore the influence of the factors -perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, attitude and cost -on intentions of blood/non-blood donors to download blood donation-themed caller tunes to promote blood donation, if they were to be available. The study assesses the potential of using caller tunes among blood/non-blood donors who use or do not use mobile phone caller tunes. Methods:A total of 478 blood donors and 477 non-blood donors were recruited for interviewer-administered questionnaire survey at blood donation sites in Accra, Ghana. Structural equation modeling with the aid of AMOS software (version 25) was used to examine factors that determine intention to use caller tunes for blood donation among blood/non-blood donors who use or do not use mobile phone caller tunes. Results:The findings of our study suggest that TAM has a high explanatory power for behavioral intention to use caller tunes especially among nonblood donors. The R-square for behavioral intention in our study was 34.7% for non-blood donors with caller tunes and 46.2% for non-blood donors with no caller tunes compared with those for blood donors with caller tunes (10.7%) and blood donors with no caller tunes (19.7%). Making caller tunes free to download significantly increased the intention of non-blood donors with no caller tunes to use caller tunes for blood donation (P < 0.001). Conclusion:Overall, our results provide empirical evidence for factors that could influence the intention of using mobile phone caller tunes for aiding blood donation.Our research provides theoretical and practical implications for designing caller tunes for blood donation particularly in Ghana. The study also found that cost is particularly relevant for non-blood donors with no caller tunes.
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