Level of knowledge on preeclampsia following health education through a WhatsApp group

HIGHLIGHTS • WhatsApp groups can effectively overcome the constraints of antenatal care in delivering health education to pregnant women. • The scope of health information about pregnancy should be expanded as this study has shown that it enhances their level of knowledge. ABSTRACT Objective: Hypertension in pregnancy, including preeclampsia, is the third most common cause of maternal mortality in Indonesia; one of the problems is low preeclampsia knowledge in the community. WhatsApp, as a social media platform, could facilitate spearheading promotive and preventive efforts, especially for high-risk mothers in the community. This study aimed to analyze the difference in levels of knowledge after receiving education through WhatsApp groups. Materials and Methods: This was a pre-experimental study using one group pre-test and one post-test design. The sample size was 58 high-risk pregnant women in one of the Public Health Centers in Surabaya. Respondents completed a preeclampsia knowledge questionnaire before and after receiving health education via WhatsApp group for 12 days. The results were analyzed using the Wilcoxon signed rank test, Mann-Whitney U-Test, and Kruskal Wallis test. Results: Most respondents had good knowledge about preeclampsia before and improved after intervention. All respondents had a difference in knowledge before and after the intervention (p