Swipe, Click or Flip? Young Women’s Learning Preferences for Pre-pregnancy Care Education

Abstract

Maximising the benefits of preconception care (PCC) requires reaching women early, yet awareness among young adult Malaysian women remains limited. Although PCC is known to reduce pregnancy- and birth-related risks, traditional health education approaches have not fully leveraged the digital communication environments where this demographic predominantly engages. Understanding how young women navigate and prefer to interact within digital and traditional learning settings is critical to designing effective interventions that bridge the gap between conventional health education delivery and user communication preferences within contemporary digital landscapes, providing a foundation for theory-driven approaches to health behaviour change.

This preliminary cross-sectional study was conducted between May and June 2023 among 500 female undergraduate students aged 18–25 years from 13 faculties of a public university in Selangor, Malaysia. A Malay-language online questionnaire was distributed via WhatsApp using purposive sampling to assess sociodemographic characteristics, PCC awareness, and preferred communication environments for PCC education. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics to characterise the sample and communication preferences. Limitations include recruitment from a single institution, reducing generalisability, and the cross-sectional design, which precludes causal inference regarding communication environment preferences and health behaviours.

The mean age of respondents was 21.39 ± 1.29 years; most were Malay (94.8%), from the B40 income group (53.4%), and over half were enrolled in health-related courses (53.8%). Only 50.2% reported awareness of PCC services. Digital communication environments were strongly preferred: 94.2% favoured online tools, with mobile applications (68.6%) and websites (68.2%) most selected. Social media environments showed overwhelming preference (95.8%), with TikTok emerging as the most common first-choice platform (55.9%), followed by Instagram (26.3%), WhatsApp (18.6%), Telegram (11.7%), and Facebook (6.3%). Traditional approaches remained important, with 77.6% preferring printed materials and 69.4% face-to-face formats, suggesting that hybrid communication strategies integrating digital and traditional environments may be most effective for this population.

These findings demonstrate that young women have distinct preferences for digital and social media–based platforms for PCC education, while continuing to value traditional methods. Positioned as a preliminary needs assessment, this study provides an empirical foundation for developing a culturally appropriate, human-centred, theory-driven PCC mobile health application that aligns with users' communication environment preferences. By understanding how young women interact within different learning environments, this research strengthens the justification for subsequent protocol development. It improves PCC service utilisation and maternal health outcomes, thereby contributing to enhanced quality of life for young adult women in Malaysia.