Gates Open Research最新文献

{"title":"Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) vaccine market survey at agro-veterinary stores in rural and peri-urban areas of Nigeria.","authors":"Adebayo Emmanuel Sopeju, Grace Onoja, Victor Taiwo Abiodun, Andrew R Peters","doi":"10.12688/gatesopenres.16349.1","DOIUrl":"10.12688/gatesopenres.16349.1","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Globally, the annual economic impact of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) is estimated at USD 11 billion in endemic settings, with the impact most profound among smallholder farmers. Farmers and the agro-veterinary stores that supply them are marginalized populations with limited to no access to veterinary care, and paucity of information on the availability and accessibility of vaccines. The objective of this study was to assess the accessibility and distribution channels of FMD vaccine, and the challenges related to the FMD vaccine market in these regions where livestock farming is highest and is an important component of livelihoods. A cross-sectional study was carried out, where at least one state was selected from five geopolitical zones of Nigeria. The locations were selected because of their high concentrations of livestock farmers. We interviewed 290 agro-veterinary store owners in these locations who directly supply smallholder farmers with animal health products. Data from the interviews were collected through the Kobocollect App ^®. Almost all of the agro-veterinary stores in rural and peri-urban areas (96.4%) had direct patronage from livestock farmers. Out of these agro-veterinary stores, relatively few (29%) sold vaccines and among these, 81% did not sell FMD vaccines. More than half (60%) of the stores selling FMD vaccines did not always have the vaccine in stock. Furthermore, maintenance of the cold chain during storage and logistics of the vaccine topped the challenges faced with stocking and sales of livestock vaccines. It was recommended that to ensure FMD control by the livestock farmers in rural and peri-urban areas through the use of FMD vaccines sold by agro-veterinary stores located in their communities, there is a need to adopt some, if not all, of the suggestions provided by the agro-veterinary store owners. This will ultimately improve animal productivity, and farmer livelihoods, and contribute to national food security.</p>","PeriodicalId":12593,"journal":{"name":"Gates Open Research","volume":"9 ","pages":"40"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-05-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12092931/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144119371","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Mapping the impact, sustainability and pedagogical frameworks of international virtual knowledge exchanges in global health: Protocol for a scoping review.","authors":"Oisin Brady Bates, Alexandru Nicholas Grecu, Divya Iyer, Diarmuid Stokes, Walter Cullen, Joseph Gallagher","doi":"10.12688/gatesopenres.16347.1","DOIUrl":"10.12688/gatesopenres.16347.1","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Rationale: </strong>Virtual exchanges are emerging as innovative educational tools with the potential to foster collaboration between High-Income Countries (HICs) and Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs). These initiatives hold the potential to enhance intercultural competencies, promote equitable partnerships, and address resource disparities. Understanding the pedagogical underpinnings, challenges, and best practices of virtual exchanges is vital for developing scalable and sustainable integration into healthcare education.</p><p><strong>Research question: </strong>To what extent have virtual exchanges in global health been reported in the literature to date, including their frameworks, impact and sustainability?</p><p><strong>Inclusion criteria: </strong>Studies involving a global health virtual exchange between at least one HIC and one LMIC will be included. Sources in all healthcare contexts will be included. Non-English language publications and those solely using secondary data will be excluded.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>The review will be conducted in line with the Joanna Briggs Institute guidance for scoping reviews (1). The following electronic databases will be searched: Medline Ovid, Embase, CINAHL & ERIC. A search of the grey literature will also be conducted. Three reviewers will independently screen the titles and abstracts and full texts for eligibility. Data extraction will be conducted independently by three reviewers. A narrative summary and tables will be presented. Key stakeholders will be consulted throughout the review.</p><p><strong>Discussion: </strong>This scoping review will provide a comprehensive understanding of virtual exchanges in global health, outlining frameworks, outcomes, content and best practices. The findings will inform the development of evidence-based models to design and sustain virtual exchanges between HIC and LMICs, enhancing their impact in global health education and practice.</p><p><strong>Registration: </strong>This protocol was registered to the Open Science Framework (OSF): DOI 10.17605/OSF.IO/MWHBP.</p>","PeriodicalId":12593,"journal":{"name":"Gates Open Research","volume":"9 ","pages":"36"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-05-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12084517/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144093367","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A comparison of acceptability of contraceptive vaginal rings, pills, and injectables among cisgender women in Kenya and Zimbabwe: protocol for a mixed-methods study.","authors":"Chelsea B Polis, Francis O Obare, Irene V Bruce, Cynthia Banda, Lisa B Haddad, Antwanette Heyns, Petros Isaakidis, Mercy Kamupira, Terrance Kufakunesu, Zachary A Kwena, Farai Machinga, Regina F Magore, Aleck Mapangire, Mercy Marimirofa, Matheus Mathipa, Sanyukta Mathur, Mary Mudavanhu, Tatenda P Mujuru, Prisca Mutero, Betty Njoroge, Collen Nyatsambo, Sarah Okumu, Leah Omondi, Tevyne Omondi, Marlena G Plagianos, Greshon Rota, Samuel Sithole, Bruce Variano, J Brady Burnett-Zieman, Petina Musara, George Odwe, Gerald Hangaika, Serah Gitome, Elizabeth A Bukusi, Kuziwa Kuwenyi","doi":"10.12688/gatesopenres.16315.1","DOIUrl":"10.12688/gatesopenres.16315.1","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Expanding contraceptive options could better meet users' diverse needs and preferences. Annovera ^® is a contraceptive vaginal ring that provides a year of pregnancy prevention while remaining under user control and allowing for regular menstrual cycles. This method may also help to reduce burdens on some health care and supply chain systems. However, knowledge gaps exist regarding initial and ongoing acceptability of contraceptive vaginal rings in African settings.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>We will undertake an open-label, non-randomized, two-arm, parallel clinical acceptability study with an embedded qualitative component, based in clinics providing contraceptive services in Kenya and Zimbabwe. Women aged 18-45 interested in newly initiating or switching contraception will choose from among all available contraceptive options, including Annovera. We aim to enroll 200 participants selecting Annovera and 200 participants selecting either contraceptive injectables or pills. We will compare method uptake, continuation, and satisfaction over one year. Participants will complete questionnaires administered by study staff during two in-person visits (a screening/enrollment visit, and an end of study visit after 52 weeks of method use or at discontinuation) and four phone appointments (at 4, 12, 24, and 36 weeks of use). We will evaluate used rings for discoloration and residual drug levels. The qualitative component involve in-depth interviews with women in the clinical study, their sexual partners, and their service providers, to further examine drivers of and barriers to interest in and use of contraceptive vaginal rings.</p><p><strong>Discussion: </strong>This study will explore acceptability of contraceptive vaginal rings in 'real-world' contraceptive service settings in two African countries. Findings will be based on actual ring use and contextualized via comparison to two other commonly available methods. As vaginal rings are being considered for multiple reproductive health indications, this work can fill key knowledge gaps and empower decision-makers with information needed to inform future investments in reproductive health.</p>","PeriodicalId":12593,"journal":{"name":"Gates Open Research","volume":"9 ","pages":"5"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11876155/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143556467","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Design and validation of a low-cost sugar-feeder for resource-poor insectaries.","authors":"Zachary Thomas Stavrou-Dowd, Clair Rose, Álvaro Acosta-Serrano, Lee Rafuse Haines","doi":"10.12688/gatesopenres.16314.1","DOIUrl":"10.12688/gatesopenres.16314.1","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>The emergence of insecticide resistance in insects has led researchers to develop new control tools so that historic gains made in reducing disease transmission are not lost. Attractive targeted sugar baits (ATSBs) are a vector control tool being widely trialled to target insects that feed on plant sugars and blood. We designed a field-friendly, economical and more environmentally responsible sugar feeder for maintaining mosquito colonies and screening potential ATSB candidates.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>We simultaneously tested, in both male and female <i>Anopheles gambiae</i> mosquitoes, the effect of adding three water-soluble medical and food dyes (Allura Red, fluorescein and tartrazine) to the sugar solution to identify those insects that had ingested sugar from the feeder. To test feeder efficacy to deliver a toxic substance, we assessed the killing using boric acid, which kills both male and female mosquitoes when ingested. Using microscopy techniques compatible with fieldwork, including the use of a mobile phone camera, we documented the efficacy and tissue specificity of the dyes on mosquitoes after they were continuously fed dyed sugar solutions.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>The easy-to-construct sugar feeder is an economical option for testing the efficacy of ATSB components on <i>Anopheles gambiae</i> mosquitoes <i>.</i> Allura Red AC was the preferred dye as it has low toxicity to mosquitoes and allows the researcher to quickly visualise the imbibed sugar meal within the abdomen. Feeding 1% fluorescein dye, but not 0.1%, for longer than five days induced systemic dye distribution, where the mosquito's wing veins, antennae and legs brightly fluoresced when examined by a handheld black light torch (395-400nm emission).</p><p><strong>Discussion: </strong>Developing an affordable sugar feeder to maintain insectary-reared insects and test the efficacy of ATSB candidates involves designing a dye-labelled sugar bait station that is of low-toxicity, reusable and easy to construct using components available in low resource settings such as field stations.</p>","PeriodicalId":12593,"journal":{"name":"Gates Open Research","volume":"9 ","pages":"6"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11876154/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143556539","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Profile: The Kenya Multi-Site Serosurveillance (KEMIS) collaboration.","authors":"E Wangeci Kagucia, Shirine Voller, Abdhalah K Ziraba, Godfrey Bigogo, Patrick K Munywoki, Kimani Makobu, D James Nokes, James Nyagwange, Cameline Orlendo, Donald Akech, Antipa Sigilai, Clayton Onyango, Bonventure Juma, Amy Herman-Roloff, Peninah Munyua, Caroline Apondi, Shirley Lidechi, Allan Audi, Alice Ouma, George Aol, Thomas Misore, Caroline Nasimiyu, Dickens Onyango, Terrence Lo, Kadondi Kasera, Rose Jalang'o, Leonard Kingwara, Ifedayo Adetifa, Anthony O Etyang, George Warimwe, Ambrose Agweyu, J Anthony G Scott","doi":"10.12688/gatesopenres.15569.2","DOIUrl":"10.12688/gatesopenres.15569.2","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The Kenya Multi Site Serosurveillance (KEMIS) collaboration set out to implement an integrated, nationally representative, population-based program of serological surveillance for past infection for a number of important infectious diseases in Kenya. The project started in December 2021 and built on a portfolio of SARS-CoV-2 research conducted in 2020 and 2021. In this profile paper, we describe the background of the KEMIS collaboration, its aim and objectives, the Health and Demographic Surveillance System sites that were involved in data collection, and the key activities undertaken. We also explain how we established governance and management of the KEMIS collaboration, and reflect on opportunities, challenges, lessons learned, and future directions.</p>","PeriodicalId":12593,"journal":{"name":"Gates Open Research","volume":"8 ","pages":"60"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-02-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12149407/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144265973","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Developing and evaluating human-centered design solutions for enhancing maternal health service utilization among vulnerable pregnant women in Oromia, Ethiopia: Study protocol for a quasi-experimental study.","authors":"Bee-Ah Kang, Habtamu Tamene, Yihunie Lakew, Daryl Stephens, Rajiv Rimal","doi":"10.12688/gatesopenres.16277.2","DOIUrl":"10.12688/gatesopenres.16277.2","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Disproportionate uptake of and access to maternal and child health services remain significant challenges across and within countries. Differing geographic, economic, environmental, and social factors contribute to varying degrees of vulnerabilities among individuals, which manifest as disparities in maternal and newborn health outcomes. Designing solutions according to need is vital to improve maternal and child health outcomes. In this paper, we describe our study protocol on developing and evaluating the effectiveness of human-centered design (HCD) solutions to improve maternal health service uptake among vulnerable pregnant women in rural areas of Ethiopia.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>The study has two distinct phases. In Phase 1, HCD solutions were developed through co-design workshops with vulnerable pregnant women and key stakeholders. Final solutions included home visit education, audio programs promoting couple discussion, and print materials, implemented in collaboration with community health workers and health officers. A community-based, quasi-experimental, mixed-method study design was used to assess differences between intervention and control arms. A panel sample was enrolled after screening for pregnancy and vulnerability level and surveyed at baseline and midline in Phase 1. Phase 2 adopts an identical design approach with a focus on refining Phase 1 solutions. Newly recruited pregnant women will receive refined solutions for six months, which will be evaluated using post-only end-line surveys and in-depth interviews.</p><p><strong>Conclusions and implications: </strong>Our sequential approach to evaluating initial solutions, which in turn will inform the enhancement of solutions, will provide practical insights into how solutions are accepted among vulnerable women and how they can be better integrated into women's lives and health systems. This will inform equity-focused practice and policies targeting populations experiencing greater barriers to accessing care and provide insights into system strengthening in rural areas. Our findings will be disseminated to the Ethiopian Ministry of Health and its partners to inform large-scale implementation at the national level.</p>","PeriodicalId":12593,"journal":{"name":"Gates Open Research","volume":"8 ","pages":"93"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-02-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11723881/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142970409","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Automated post-run analysis of arrayed quantitative PCR amplification curves using machine learning.","authors":"Ben J Brintz, Darwin J Operario, David Garrett Brown, Shanrui Wu, Lan Wang, Eric R Houpt, Daniel T Leung, Jie Liu, James A Platts-Mills","doi":"10.12688/gatesopenres.16313.1","DOIUrl":"10.12688/gatesopenres.16313.1","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>The TaqMan Array Card (TAC) is an arrayed, high-throughput qPCR platform that can simultaneously detect multiple targets in a single reaction. However, the manual post-run analysis of TAC data is time consuming and subject to interpretation. We sought to automate the post-run analysis of TAC data using machine learning models.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>We used 165,214 qPCR amplification curves from two studies to train and test two eXtreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) models. Previous manual analyses of the amplification curves by experts in qPCR analysis were used as the gold standard. First, a classification model predicted whether amplification occurred or not, and if so, a second model predicted the cycle threshold (Ct) value. We used 5-fold cross-validation to tune the models and assessed performance using accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), negative predictive value (NPV), and mean absolute error (MAE). For external validation, we used 1,472 reactions previously analyzed by 17 laboratory scientists as part of an external quality assessment for a multisite study.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>In internal validation, the classification model achieved an accuracy of 0.996, sensitivity of 0.997, specificity of 0.993, PPV of 0.998, and NPV of 0.991. The Ct prediction model achieved a MAE of 0.590. In external validation, the automated analysis achieved an accuracy of 0.997 and a MAE of 0.611, and the automated analysis was more accurate than manual analyses by 14 of the 17 laboratory scientists.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>We automated the post-run analysis of highly-arrayed qPCR data using machine learning models with high accuracy in comparison to a manual gold standard. This approach has the potential to save time and improve reproducibility in laboratories using the TAC platform and other high-throughput qPCR approaches.</p>","PeriodicalId":12593,"journal":{"name":"Gates Open Research","volume":"9 ","pages":"1"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11756513/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143028282","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"An Open Letter on Advancing HIV prevention: Augmenting an ecosystem-based approach to understand prevention decision-making.","authors":"Nishan Gantayat, James Baer, Alok Gangaramany, Rosemary Pierce-Messick","doi":"10.12688/gatesopenres.16067.2","DOIUrl":"10.12688/gatesopenres.16067.2","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In the last two decades, HIV programs have been able to avert millions of AIDS-related deaths and reduce HIV incidence. However, the 1.3 million new HIV infections in 2022 remain significantly above the UNAIDS target of fewer than 370,000 new infections by 2025. HIV programs worldwide also did not achieve the UN's 90-90-90 target for testing and treatment set for 2020. Within this broader picture, HIV continues to disproportionately affect key and at-risk populations, including gay men and other men who have sex with men, female sex workers, and adolescent girls and young women. As HIV incidence declines and biomedical advances continue, it will become critical for public-health practitioners to reach key and at-risk populations with prevention services and limit primary transmission. In this Open Letter, we focus on factors that influence uptake of HIV prevention products and thereby demand for HIV prevention products and services. These factors exist at three levels of the decision-making ecosystem - the individual level, interaction level and systemic level. We argue that approaching HIV prevention solely through the lens of these levels creates a static view of prevention decision-making. There is a need instead for a dynamic viewpoint that can mirror the changing contexts in which users find themselves and make prevention decisions. We demonstrate that the current ecosystem viewpoint is useful to understand the gaps that exist in program implementation, but does not provide adequate insights into the underlying behaviors that contribute to these gaps. To address this, we suggest an approach to include dynamic aspects of decision-making with factors that influence the individual's assessment of risk, their evaluation of the opportunities to use HIV prevention, and their effective use of prevention products.</p>","PeriodicalId":12593,"journal":{"name":"Gates Open Research","volume":"8 ","pages":"73"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11785587/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143079392","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"An exploration of unusual antimicrobial resistance phenotypes in Salmonella Typhi from Blantyre, Malawi reveals the ongoing role of IncHI1 plasmids.","authors":"Allan Zuza, Alexander M Wailan, Catherine Anscombe, Nicholas A Feasey, Eva Heinz","doi":"10.12688/gatesopenres.16311.1","DOIUrl":"10.12688/gatesopenres.16311.1","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Typhoid fever is a significant public health problem endemic in Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Antimicrobial treatment of typhoid is however threatened by the increasing prevalence of antimicrobial resistant (AMR) <i>S.</i> Typhi, especially in the globally successful lineage (4.3.1) which has rapidly spread in East and Southern Africa. AMR elements can be found either on plasmids or in one of the three chromosomal integration sites, and there is variability of this across the lineage. Several previous studies with Malawian isolates indicated a clonal, locally spreading lineage with chromosomally integrated resistance genes. In a recent study however we noted three isolates with predicted resistance genes unusual for the region, and we here present the resolved genomes of these isolates using long- and short-read sequencing. Our work shows that these isolates are potentially imported cases, most closely related to the recently described sub-lineage 4.3.1.EA1, although they encode IncHI1 plasmids with reduced resistance gene repertoire compared to the main IncHI1 plasmids spreading in East Africa. Similar reduced plasmids were reported in a recent large-scale study in five isolates from Tanzania, highlighting the urgency for better coverage of the African continent in genome studies to better understand the dynamics of these potentially co-circulating plasmids.</p>","PeriodicalId":12593,"journal":{"name":"Gates Open Research","volume":"8 ","pages":"143"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11750072/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143004188","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Supporting contraceptive self-care and reproductive empowerment with a digital health game in Barbados: Development and Pre-implementation study for What's My Method?","authors":"Elena Bertozzi, Clara Bertozzi-Villa, Erin Sabato, Nicole Alleyne, Sonia Watson-Miller, Tiffany Jordan, Anderson Langdon","doi":"10.12688/gatesopenres.15376.2","DOIUrl":"10.12688/gatesopenres.15376.2","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Effective contraceptive education is essential to reducing unwanted pregnancy, increasing uptake of modern contraceptive methods, and thoughtfully planning desired births. New World Health Organization (WHO) and family planning organization guidelines recommend situating contraceptive education and counseling within a broader context of self-care that emphasizes individual agency and reproductive empowerment. Digital health interventions, and games for health specifically, have been validated as effective and scalable tools for self-guided and interactive health education, especially among younger tech-savvy individuals. Barbados currently supplements provider-based contraceptive counseling with analog materials (pamphlets and posters) and informational videos that play on a screen in the waiting room. As part of an implementation framework, this study seeks to conduct a formative evaluation of the What's My Method? (WMM) game intervention as a tool to support contraceptive counseling and increase reproductive empowerment among childbearing persons in Barbados. We test-deployed the WMM game in Bridgetown, Barbados, conducting playtests and unstructured discussions with prototypes of the WMM game among three groups of stakeholders (youth contraception ambassadors: n=8; healthcare providers: n=7; and nursing students: n=27) to determine acceptability of the intervention, efficacy of the game as a learning tool, and willingness to adopt the tool in their healthcare context. Feedback on acceptability of the game was largely positive. Detailed constructive comments informed modifications and improvements to the game. The questionnaire used to assess contraceptive knowledge gain did not prove effective. Results indicate that the WMM game is well-received and accepted by the healthcare professionals who would be deploying it. This pilot testing has informed the design of the modified WMM for a randomized controlled trial (RCT) to test the deployment of the game in a healthcare setting.</p>","PeriodicalId":12593,"journal":{"name":"Gates Open Research","volume":"8 ","pages":"47"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-11-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11772015/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143052310","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}