Leveraging mobile health applications to improve sexual and reproductive health services in Nigeria: implications for practice and policy

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), mHealth has the potential to transform how people access health services and achieve higher standard of health and well-being [8]. Healthcare financing in Nigeria is grossly inadequate and contributes greatly to the fragility of the health system. Since the Abuja declaration of 2001 that saw leaders of African countries pledge to commit at least 15% of their annual budgets to the health sector, Nigeria has never voted more than 6% of its annual budget to the health sector. Utility of mHealth in improving SRH services Advances in mHealth have promoted their use in SRH service delivery. mHealth has been utilized to send personal reminders to patients via e-mail, automated phone calls, or text messages to remind them to take their medications or visit the health facility [29]. Text message and telephone reminders have been successfully used to gather health‐related information from pregnant women [30], to increase access to family planning information [31], to facilitate the presence of skilled birth attendants during labour [32], and to enhance prenatal and postnatal care [12].