BRAC James P Grant School of Public Health, BRAC University, Dhaka 1212, Bangladesh.
Centre for Primary Health Care and Equity, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2021 Dec 21;19(1):40. doi: 10.3390/ijerph19010040.
Digital fingerprints are increasingly used for patient care and treatment delivery, health system monitoring and evaluation, and maintaining data integrity during health research. Yet, no evidence exists about the use of fingerprinting technologies in maternal healthcare services in urban slum contexts, globally. The present study aimed to explore the recently delivered women's willingness to give digital fingerprints to community health workers to access healthcare services in the urban slums of Bangladesh and identify the associated factors. Employing a two-stage cluster random sampling procedure, we chose 458 recently delivered women from eight randomly selected urban slums of Dhaka city, Bangladesh. Chi-square tests were performed for descriptive analyses, and binary logistic regression analyses were performed to explore the factors associated with willingness to provide fingerprints. Overall, 78% of the participants reported that they were willing to provide digital fingerprints if that eased access to healthcare services. After adjusting for potential confounders, the sex of the household head, family type, and household wealth status were significantly associated with the willingness to provide fingerprints to access healthcare services. The study highlighted the potentials of using fingerprints for making healthcare services accessible. Focus is needed for female-headed households, women from poor families, and engaging husbands and in-laws in mobile health programs.
数字指纹越来越多地用于患者护理和治疗交付、卫生系统监测和评估，以及在卫生研究中保持数据完整性。然而，在全球范围内，针对城市贫民窟背景下的产妇保健服务中使用指纹识别技术的情况，尚无任何证据。本研究旨在探讨最近分娩的妇女是否愿意向社区卫生工作者提供数字指纹，以在孟加拉国的城市贫民窟获得医疗保健服务，并确定相关因素。采用两阶段整群随机抽样程序，我们从孟加拉国达卡市 8 个随机选择的城市贫民窟中选择了 458 名最近分娩的妇女。采用卡方检验进行描述性分析，采用二项逻辑回归分析探讨与提供指纹意愿相关的因素。总体而言，78%的参与者表示，如果这能方便获得医疗保健服务，他们愿意提供数字指纹。在调整潜在混杂因素后，家庭户主的性别、家庭类型和家庭财富状况与提供指纹以获取医疗服务的意愿显著相关。该研究强调了使用指纹使医疗服务更便捷的潜力。需要关注女性户主家庭、贫困家庭的妇女，以及让丈夫和姻亲参与移动医疗计划。
