Use of Facility Ratings to Improve Satisfaction With Heath Care for Children

NCT06304831 | Completed

• 1 other identifier: SwissTI
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 559
• Locations: 1 country
• Sites: 1

Brief Summary

Despite increasing options for public and private health care providers in Laos, choosing a high-quality health provider or a facility is difficult because timely and reliable information about providers is not readily available. People rely on social networks or previous experiences to select providers. However, in Laos, only 28% describe their recent visit to a health care provider as high-quality suggesting that while there are increasing options for care, people may need support to find providers that meet their quality needs. Rapid adoption of mobile phones in Laos, particularly in urban areas, offer opportunities to enhance people's access to timely quality information about health care providers. The study team will use mobile phones to collect and disseminate quality information about providers - known to be valued by Laotians - to improve their access to quality care as well as their overall satisfaction with care.

Conditions

Quality of Health Care

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (1)

• Proportion of mothers that change their preferred health care providers for children for non-urgent care

  The primary outcome of this study is the proportion of mothers that changed their preferred health care facility for non-urgent child care services between baseline and endline surveys. Non-urgent care is defined as children with mild fever of 38 degrees along with cough. During the baseline and endline surveys, participants will be asked to specify their preferred location for non-urgent child care as follows: "If your child is sick tomorrow with mild fever of 38 degrees Celsius and cough, which hospital, clinic or health center will you take your child to?" The primary outcome will be a binary indicator for participants changing their preferred location between baseline and endline.

  3 months

Secondary Outcomes (6)

• Proportion of mothers satisfied with health care for their children of their most recent visit

  3 months

• Number and type of health care providers used in the past 3 months

  3 months

• Proportion of mothers that change their most recently visited health care providers for children

  3 months

• Proportion of mothers choosing the preferred facility for non-urgent care because of online or digital information sources

  3 months

• Proportion of mothers that change their preferred health care providers for children for urgent care

  3 months

Study Arms (2)

Intervention

EXPERIMENTAL

The intervention group will receive biweekly updates about quality ratings of recently visited health care providers for children by everyone enrolled in the study.

Behavioral: Quality ratings of health care providers for children

Control

NO INTERVENTION

The control group will not receive any information about health care providers for children.

Interventions

Quality ratings of health care providers for children BEHAVIORAL

Ratings of overall and components of quality (provider knowledge, respectfulness of provider, respectfulness of staff, cleanliness, cost) of health care providers for children will be provided on a webpage. The webpage will be updated every week and participants will be invited to access the latest ratings biweekly.

Intervention

Eligibility Criteria

• Age: 18 Years+
• Sex: female
• Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Age Groups: Adult (18-64), Older Adult (65+)

You may qualify if:

• All women 18 years of age and older and enrolled in Vientiane Multigenerational Birth Cohort (VITERBI) with at least one child less than two years old, able to read, have exclusive access to a mobile phone, have a WhatsApp account, understand and sign the ICF will be eligible to participate in the study. The eligibility criteria will be assessed using data collected from VITERBI. Ability to read will be tested using a script in Lao, "I use my mobile phone every day."

You may not qualify if:

• Eligible women unwilling to sign informed consent, without exclusive access to a mobile phone, unable to read the test script, or unable operate a mobile phone will be excluded from the study.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Swiss Tropical & Public Health Institute: lead
• Lao Tropical and Public Health Institute: collaborator

Study Sites (1)

Lao Tropical and Public Health Institute

Vientiane, Vientiane Capital, Laos

Location

Related Publications (1)

• Aryal A, Clarke-Deelder E, Sayasone S, Fink G. Informing Facility Selection Through a Web-Based User Ratings System: Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial Among Mothers in Urban Lao People's Democratic Republic. JMIR Res Protoc. 2025 Sep 4;14:e66085. doi: 10.2196/66085.

  PMID: 40907019 DERIVED

Study Officials

• Günther Fink, PhD

  Swiss Tropical & Public Health Institute

  STUDY CHAIR

• Amit Aryal, MPH

  Swiss Tropical & Public Health Institute

  PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

Study Design

• Study Type: interventional
• Phase: not applicable
• Allocation: RANDOMIZED
• Masking: NONE
• Purpose: OTHER
• Intervention Model: SINGLE GROUP
• Sponsor Type: OTHER
• Responsible Party: SPONSOR

Model Details: This study consists of a randomized controlled experiment involving 660 mothers with children less than 2 years old. Participants will be randomly assigned to one of two groups: 1) a control group that will not receive any information about providers and 2) an intervention group that will receive biweekly updates about quality ratings based on reviews collected from mothers of young children in the study areas. The unit of randomization will be the individual participant. A simple random number draw generated by the ODK package installed on the tablets will be used to assign participants to treatment and control with equal probability.

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: March 5, 2024
• First Posted: March 12, 2024
• Study Start: March 11, 2024
• Primary Completion: October 23, 2024
• Study Completion: October 23, 2024
• Last Updated: January 13, 2025

Record last verified: 2024-03

Data Sharing

• IPD Sharing: Will not share

Locations

LA (1)