LAUSR

Objectives The purpose of this study was to determine the acceptability of messages in a text message-based nutrition intervention for the prevention of excessive gestational weight gain in low-income women in the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program in Hawai'i. Methods Low-income pregnant women (n = 100) in Hawaii participated in a four-month text message-based nutrition intervention program. Participants in the intervention arm received 18 text messages (1/week) that focused on reinforcing WIC's nutritional recommendations for pregnant women. Participants who completed the intervention were interviewed at their respective WIC clinic about their experiences with the messages. The interviews were transcribed and content analysis to identify the prevailing themes and concepts was performed with NVivo (version 12, GSR International, Inc, Burlington, MA). Results Participants responded to questions in four content areas: most useful messages for staying healthy, least useful messages for staying healthy, messages that affected eating and exercise habits, and the experience of receiving messages. The most useful messages related to healthy food substitutions. The least helpful messages were those participants felt they were unable to perform, such as eating sardines for omega-3 fatty acids. Participants cited that messages relating to healthy food substitutions as having the most impact on eating behavior. Most participants also felt that increasing the number of messages would have been helpful. Conclusions Results suggest that providing information relating to healthy food substitutions as well as providing a high frequency of messages could be beneficial in the development of mobile health programs for low-income pregnant women in controlling gestational weight gain. Funding Sources Mountain West Clinical Translational Research Infrastructure Network under a grant from National Institute of General Medicine Sciences of the National Institute of Health.