Effect of a digital school-based intervention on adolescent family planning and reproductive health in Rwanda: a cluster-randomized trial

• Published in: Nature medicine
• Main Authors: Hémono, Rebecca, Gatare, Emmyson, Kayitesi, Laetitia, Hunter, Lauren A, Packel, Laura, Ippoliti, Nicole, Cerecero-García, Diego, Contreras-Loya, David, Gadsden, Paola, Bautista-Arredondo, Sergio, Sayinzoga, Felix, Mugisha, Michael, Bertozzi, Stefano M, Hope, Rebecca, McCoy, Sandra I
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States 23.08.2024
• ISSN: 1546-170X; 1546-170X
• DOI: 10.1038/s41591-024-03205-1

We conducted a cluster-randomized hybrid effectiveness-implementation study of CyberRwanda, a digital family planning and reproductive health intervention for Rwandan adolescents. Sixty schools were randomized 1:1:1 to control or to one of two implementation models-self-service (self-guided access on tablets) or facilitated (peer-led clubs plus tablet access) with no masking. Eligible participants were aged 12-19 years, in secondary school levels 1 or 2, and willing to provide consent or assent/parental consent and contact information for follow-up. In 2021, 6,078 randomly selected adolescents were enrolled. At 24 months, 91.3% of participants were retained and included in the primary intention-to-treat analyses (control, n = 1,845; self-service, n = 1,849 and facilitated, n = 1,858). There were no adverse events related to the study. CyberRwanda did not affect the primary outcomes of modern contraceptive use (prevalence ratio (PR) = 1.04; 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.76, 1.42), childbearing (PR = 1.33; 95% CI = 0.71, 2.50) and HIV testing (PR = 1.00; 95% CI = 0.91, 1.11) in the full sample. Significantly higher modern contraceptive use observed in the CyberRwanda facilitated arm in a prespecified analysis of sexually active participants suggests that longer-term evaluation is needed to examine effects as more of the study population becomes sexually active and has increased demand for contraception. ClinicalTrials.gov registration: NCT04198272 .