Barriers and Enablers to Effective Maternal Health Campaigns on Social Media Platforms in Nigeria

Abstract

This study was carried out to explore the factors that facilitate or hinder the effectiveness
of maternal health campaign on social media platforms in Nigeria. The enablers include
digital literacy by providing training to users on how to enhances their competence in
using digital health tools, engaging community members in health campaigns had
increased the confidence and satisfaction among service users, contributing to their trust
in healthcare providers and healthcare systems and interactive feature of the social media
platforms such as immediate feedback proves to be of advantage , while barriers
examined in this study are digital divide such as poor network and misinformation on
social media platforms proves to be a disadvantage to health outcomes. The researchers
adopted the media richness theory, which argue that media choice influences message
effectiveness. The researchers adopted the library research method. The findings revealed
that despite the challenges of using social media for maternal health campaigns, these
campaigns are seen to be effective by facilitating awareness on maternal health issues,
promoting healthier maternal behaviour and extend reach of maternal information. This
study suggested that government and private organisations should carryout orientations
on digital literacy and limit digital divide in Nigeria. The paper concludes that social
media platforms offer more good than harm in passing health information in Nigeria.