Effect of web-based preconception care and counseling on women’s awareness of risk, and healthy lifestyle behaviors: an open-label randomized controlled trial

Preconception care is a recognized component of maternal health, and it is known that web-based trainings improve health indicators of women of reproductive age who need preconception counseling and care. This study was conducted to determine effects of preconception care and counseling provided via the web-based software called Web Midwife Support, designed by the researchers to be used in the preconception period, on women’s awareness of risk, and healthy lifestyle behaviors. This open-label randomized controlled trial (RCT) with a pretest-posttest design consisted of 84 women (18–49 years old) recruited from a premarital counseling unit. Participants were randomly assigned to either the experimental group (n = 42), receiving web-based training and 24/7 midwife support, or the control group (n = 42), receiving usual care. The primary outcome was the inter-group difference in risk awareness and healthy lifestyle scores at 10 weeks, while the secondary outcomes included the intra-group pre-post changes. Data were analyzed using independent and dependent samples t-tests or their non-parametric equivalents. Following the 10-week intervention, for the primary outcome, there were statistically significant differences between the experimental and control groups in terms of the scores they obtained at the post-test (Experimental: 182.29 ± 3.17; Control: 148.10 ± 20.71; p < 0.001). For the secondary outcome, significant pre-post improvements were observed in the experimental group (165.36 ± 16.25) compared to the control group (124.78 ± 22.78) across all subscales of risk awareness (e.g., fertility planning, chronic diseases) and healthy lifestyle behaviors (e.g., health responsibility, physical activity) (p < 0.001), while the difference in the control group was statistically insignificant (p > 0.05). Web-based preconception care and counseling called Web Midwife Support was determined to be an effective innovative approach in improving women’s preconception period risk awareness and healthy lifestyle behaviors. As these promising results provide important information on the efficacy of the digital application, they should lead to further large-scale studies to confirm these impacts across broader populations. Registration date: 2023-08-13 Trial registration: USA Clinical Trial Register (PRS ID: NCT06002451) URL: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/record/NCT06002451.