Maternal mortality is high in Nigeria especially in rural areas due to knowledge deficit about expected care and labour process, socio-cultural belief, health care workers' attitude, physical and financial barriers to quality health care access. Mobile health (m-health) technology which is the use of mobile telecommunication devices in health care delivery reduces costs, improves care access, removes time and distance barriers and facilitates patient-provider communications needed to make appropriate health decisions. Previous studies empowering nurses with m-health knowledge resulted in improved uptake of health care services. There exists a literature dearth about knowledge and perception of nurses in Nigeria. This study became expedient to empower nurses working at the grassroots with the knowledge of m-health and assess the impact of educational training on their perception of its effectiveness. This quasi-experimental study carried out in four randomly selected LGAs across Oyo South Senatorial district involved participants at experimental (20 nurses) and control levels (27 nurses). A validated 25-item questionnaire explored nurses' perception, knowledge and perceived effectiveness of m-health in improving uptake of maternal health services in Nigeria among both groups before intervention. Intervention group nurses had a training equipping them with knowledge of m-health nursing intervention (MNHI) for a period of one week. Their perception, knowledge and perceived effectiveness were re-assessed at three-months and six-months after MHNI. Data were analyzed using Chi-square and repeated measures ANOVA at 5% significance level. In the EG, knowledge score significantly increased from 21.9±4.5 at baseline to 23.6±4.6 and 23.2±5.6 at three-month and six-month respectively while there was no significant difference in knowledge score among CG over the study period. A very significant difference was shown in the knowledge and perception of mobile health and its effectiveness at P1 (p= 0.012 and 0.017) but this significance faded away 6 months after (p= 0.312 and 0.598) respectively. The study was effective as it improved the knowledge and perceived effectiveness of m-health among PHC nurses. However, the improvement dwindled after 6 months. Thus, similar training and retraining should be conducted periodically to update nurses' knowledge and improve clients' access to quality health information, education and therapeutic communication.
Keywords: Community Health Nurses; knowledge; m-health nursing; perception.