title: Using mobile phones and social media to facilitate education and support for rural-based midwives in South Africa.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Empirical studies show the value of mobile phones as effective educational tools to support learning in the nursing profession, predominantly in high income countries.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  The rapidly increasing prevalence of mobile phone technology in Africa nourishes hopes that these tools could be equally effective in lowly resourced contexts, specifically in efforts to achieve the health-related Millennium Development goals. The purpose of this study was to investigate the perception and use of mobile phones as educational and professional tools by nurses in lowly resourced settings.
  
  
  METHODS
  A quantitative survey using self-administered questionnaires was conducted of rural advanced midwives.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Fifty-six nurses (49.6%) from the 113 rural-based midwives attending an advanced midwifery training programme at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, filled in a questionnaire. The results showed that, whilst nurses regarded their technology competences as low and although they received very little official support from their educational and professional institutions, the majority frequently used mobile functions and applications to support their work and learning processes. They perceived mobile devices with their voice, text, and email functions as important tools for the educational and professional activities of searching for information and engaging with facilitators and peers from work and study contexts. To a lesser extent, the use of social networks, such as WhatsApp and Facebook, were also reported.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  It is concluded that educational institutions should support the appropriate use of mobile phones more systematically; particularly in relation to the development of mobile network literacy skills.
authors: School of Nursing, University of the Western Cape, South Africa and Sydney Nursing School, University of Sydney. jchipps@uwc.ac.za.
authors: Jennifer
authors: J
authors: Chipps
authors: Christoph
authors: C
authors: Pimmer
authors: Petra
authors: P
authors: Brysiewicz
authors: Fiona
authors: F
authors: Walters
authors: Sebastian
authors: S
authors: Linxen
authors: Thandi
authors: T
authors: Ndebele
authors: Urs
authors: U
authors: Gröhbiel
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D040421:Cell Phone / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D004506:Education, Nursing / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D008880:Midwifery / Q000379:methods*; D010353:Patient Education as Topic / Q000379:methods; D011247:Pregnancy; D012424:Rural Population; D061108:Social Media / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D013019:South Africa; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires