DIFFUSING MOBILE PHONES FOR HEALTH INFORMATION COMMUNICATION WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO REPORT SUBMISSION AMONG HEALTH WORKERS IN RUNGWE DISTRICT, TANZANIA

Abstract

This research deployed Roger’s innovation diffusion theory to study the adoption of mobile phone services for data collection and report submission among health workers in Rungwe district – Tanzania. Many respondents agreed that, the adoption of mobile phone services for report submission is cheap (73.36%), easy (77.39%), quick (74.4%), can be done at anytime (78.89%), and can allow provision of other services (78.39%). Similarly majority of respondents agreed that, adoption of mobile phone services will be compatible with their employer (64.32%), nature of work (73.37%), and level of education (64.82%). However, almost half of respondents disagreed to the concept that adoption of mobile phone services for report submission will be compatible to their monthly salary income (48.25%) and monthly mobile phone operating cost (47.24%). On complexities associated with the adoption of mobile phone services for report submission, most respondents are able to use mobile phone voice calls (78.78%) and SMS (82.41%). Majority of respondents are unable to use the internet (44.72%) and MMS (48.24%). Trialability of daily and weekly HIMS data was favoured by majority of respondents with 68.33% and 65.32% agreement respectively. Trialability of monthly, quarterly and annual HIMS data was not favoured by majority of respondents with the disagreement of 52.26%, 56.78% and 61.30%, respectively. The findings of the study illustrated that, adoption of mobile phone services for report submission will have observability features such as improved frequency of submission (62.81%), timely submitted report (60.30%), other field using the same technology (64.32%) and other staff using the same technology (66.83%). Correlation analysis of the study data showed that the age category, type of health facility, and employment age were positively correlated but not significant with adoption of mobile phone services for report submission. Monthly salary category and monthly mobile phone costs were inversely correlated with adoption of mobile services for report submission. Only 0.3% of variance in adoption of mobile phone services for report submission was accounted by the regressed demographic variables.

Key words: Mobile Phones, Health Information Communication, m-health workers