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Preference and acceptability of alternative delivery vehicles for prenatal calcium supplementation among pregnant women in urban Bangladesh (256.2)
Author(s) -
Baxter JoAnna,
Roth Daniel,
Mahmud Abdullah,
Islam Munirul,
Ahmed Tahmeed,
Zlotkin Stanley
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.28.1_supplement.256.2
Subject(s) - medicine , preference , pregnancy , calcium supplementation , environmental health , calcium , obstetrics , mathematics , statistics , genetics , biology
Prenatal calcium supplementation is recommended by the WHO to decrease the risk of preeclampsia when dietary calcium intake is low; yet, this recommendation has not been successfully implemented to date. We aimed to evaluate preference and acceptability of alternate delivery vehicles for prenatal calcium supplementation (conventional tablets, chewable tablets, unflavored powder, and flavored powder) among pregnant women in urban Bangladesh. In a modified discrete‐choice experiment, pregnant women (n = 132) completed a 4‐day ‘run‐in period’ in which each option was sampled once, followed by a 21‐day ‘selection period’ during which participants freely selected a single option per day. Preference was objectively based on the probability of selection of each option; acceptability was assessed using questionnaires. Conventional tablets demonstrated the highest probability of selection (62%); the probability of selection of chewable tablets (19%), flavored powder (12%), and unflavored powder (5%) were all significantly lower than for conventional tablets (P < 0.001). Conventional tablets were also more acceptable based on subjective reports. Observation of actual use and expressed perceptions showed that a conventional tablet is likely to be the most successful prenatal calcium supplement for scale‐up of the WHO recommendation in Bangladesh. Grant Funding Source : Supported by the Hospital for Sick Children and Sprinkles Global Health Initiative