RESULTS
CoC, HIV – human immunodeficiency virus, malaria
MALARIA, SECONDARY
In April 2019, we randomized 10 municipalities in Benguela province to either the intervention or control group. We required public health care facilities within each group to provide either standard MNCH services plus distribution of MCH handbook and its supplementary interventions (intervention group) or standard MNCH services with continued use of two stand-alone home-based records (control group). We started recruiting participants on June 8, 2019 and involved 190 public facilities (89 from intervention group and 101 from control group) in this study (Table S4 in the We approached a total of 11 530 women and invited them to participate in the study; 131 (1%) declined and 765 (7%) were approached multiple times, after which their duplicate records were removed, leaving 11 006 (95%) enrolled participants (4633 in the intervention group and 6373 in the control group) (Trial profile showing number of recruited participants and analytical sample.Baseline characteristics of study participantsANC – antenatal care, HBR – home-based record, MCH – maternal and child healthAt three months postpartum, the odds for achievement of maternal behavior-based CoC in the intervention group were not significantly different from those of the control group (1132 (30%) of 3774 women in the intervention group vs 2145 (41%) of 5265 in the control group; OR = 1.18; 95% CI = 0.48-2.93 (Effect of the intervention on continuum of care up to three months postpartumCoC – continuum of care, ANC – antenatal care, OR – odds ratio, CI – confidence intervalChanges in individual components of maternal behavior-based CoC in the intervention and control groups by municipality location (urban and rural). Compared to maternal behavior-based CoC, a smaller proportion of women achieved service-based CoC in both groups (26% vs 30% in the intervention group and 38% vs 41% in the control group) and the probability of having received all seven childhood vaccinations was lower among women in the intervention group compared to those in the control group (Findings on the secondary outcomes reflected a similar trend, except for antenatal care coverage of at least one visit. The odds of attending at least one antenatal care clinic was significantly higher in the intervention group compared to the control group (OR = 5.16, 95% CI = 2.50-10.67) (Effect of the intervention on continuum of care up to six months postpartumANC – antenatal care, HIV – human immunodeficiency virus, PMTCT – prevention of mother to child transmissions, IPTp – intermittent preventive treatment of malaria in pregnancy, OR – odds ratio, CI – confidence interval