Clinical trial NCT02723136: Implementation of a Smartphone Application in Medical Education
Official title: Implementing a Smartphone Application to Optimise Academic Performance Among Medical Students: A Randomised Trial
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Phase: NA
Conditions: Education, Medical
Keywords: Smartphone
Internship
Internal Medicine
Lead sponsor: Universidad de Valparaiso
Sponsor class: OTHER
Collaborators: name: Laboratorio de Ingeniería y Tecnología (LABITEC)
First posted: 2016-03-30
Enrollment: 80
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 18
Standard ages: ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Allocation: RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: PARALLEL

Brief summary: This study addresses the effectiveness of a smartphone application to improve academic performance among medical students. Participants will be randomised to receive an application developed by a team of physicians and engineers, designed to review key concepts in internal medicine and its subspecialties. The primary outcome will be the number of correct answers in a multiple choice test 4 weeks after randomisation.

Detailed description: Smartphones are devices that are commonly used by medical professionals. Their adoption by students and physicians is increasing, with reported use rates of roughly 85%. Reasons behind these implementation rates stem from their versatility, since this technology provides mobile communications and advanced informatics in a handheld device that can be used at the bedside. However, data regarding their use in medical education is scarce.

This study aims to address whether a smartphone application designed to review key concepts in internal medicine and its subspecialties might increase the overall academic performance of medical students. Eligible participants will be interns in their final year of study who own a smartphone with an operating system based in Android® or iOS®. Only those that do not wish to participate will be excluded from this trial.

All participants will undergo a baseline test aimed at addressing their knowledge of internal medicine and its subspecialties. Multiple choice questions will be used in this test, which have been developed by a team of internists with 5 years experience in formulating them. These questions have also been designed to resemble a national examination that is required to practice medicine in the Chilean Public Health System, and have shown a good correlation with performance in the latter exam in previous reports. In order to optimise adherence, the application will also provide feedback to its user, showing overall performance in terms of correct answers and time required to solve a clinical vignette.

After this test, participants will be randomised to receive the smartphone application by a statistician. Investigators will be kept unaware of the allocation sequence used in this trial. The contents of the application will include clinical vignettes that will review core concepts in internal medicine and its subspecialties. After 4 weeks, participants will undergo a second test and the overall performance between groups will be compared. Both outcome assessors and statisticians will be kept unaware of participant allocation. Data regarding the overall application use will be collected as well.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Medical student coursing their internship.
* Owns a smartphone with an Android® or iOs®-based operating system

Exclusion Criteria:

* Refusal to participate.

Primary outcomes:
measure: Academic Performance
timeFrame: 4 weeks after randomisation
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Time to complete tests
timeFrame: 4 weeks after randomisation
Other outcomes:
measure: Application adherence
timeFrame: 4 weeks after randomisation
measure: Application adherence
timeFrame: 4 weeks after randomisation
Locations:
city: Reñaca
country: Chile
facility: Campus de la Salud, Universidad de Valparaiso
state: Viña del Mar
Study officials:
affiliation: Universidad de Valparaiso
name: Felipe Martinez, M.D., M.Sc.
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References:
citation: Mosa AS, Yoo I, Sheets L. A systematic review of healthcare applications for smartphones. BMC Med Inform Decis Mak. 2012 Jul 10;12:67. doi: 10.1186/1472-6947-12-67.
citation: Shah J, Haq U, Bashir A, Shah SA. Awareness of academic use of smartphones and medical apps among medical students in a private medical college? J Pak Med Assoc. 2016 Feb;66(2):184-6.
citation: Baumgart DC. Smartphones in clinical practice, medical education, and research. Arch Intern Med. 2011 Jul 25;171(14):1294-6. doi: 10.1001/archinternmed.2011.320. No abstract available.
citation: Rung A, Warnke F, Mattheos N. Investigating the use of smartphones for learning purposes by Australian dental students. JMIR Mhealth Uhealth. 2014 Apr 30;2(2):e20. doi: 10.2196/mhealth.3120.
citation: O'Connor P, Byrne D, Butt M, Offiah G, Lydon S, Mc Inerney K, Stewart B, Kerin MJ. Interns and their smartphones: use for clinical practice. Postgrad Med J. 2014 Feb;90(1060):75-9. doi: 10.1136/postgradmedj-2013-131930. Epub 2013 Nov 15.