An interview study exploring healthcare professionals’ experiences of supporting health behaviors in migrant women after childbirth with special emphasis on mHealth

Abstract

Abstract Migrant health, including reproductive health, is a public health priority. The time after childbirth is considered an important period for health behavior change and mobile health (mHealth) interventions have shown promise in influencing health behaviors. Healthcare professionals have an important role in providing support for health behaviors and implementing mHealth tools in clinical care. This study therefore examined healthcare professionals’ experiences of health behavior promotion in migrant women and the potential for an mHealth intervention to improve health behaviors after childbirth. Twenty healthcare professionals in Sweden participated in individual semi-structured interviews. The informants had different professional backgrounds, ages, working experiences and all were females. Data was analyzed using thematic analysis and three main themes were generated. The first theme “Priorities and routines of health behavior promotion after childbirth” described a lack of priority for health behavior promotion after childbirth. The second theme “Social influences of health behaviors” described several factors that influenced possibilities for healthy behaviors after childbirth. In the third theme “mHealth in supporting health behaviors after childbirth”, informants stressed that a culturally appropriate smartphone app with reliable information had the potential to promote health behaviors after childbirth although further research is needed.