Implementation of a Smartphone Application in Medical Education (iSTART)

Universidad de Valparaiso

Status: Completed

Conditions: Education, Medical

Treatments: Device: Smartphone Application

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT02723136

CEC098-16

Details and patient eligibility

About

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.

Full 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.

Enrollment: 80 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

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

Exclusion criteria

• Refusal to participate.

Trial design

80 participants in 2 patient groups

Smartphone application

Experimental group

Description:

Participants allocated to this arm will receive a smartphone application developed to assist and guide the study of internal medicine and its subspecialties. The application will provide feedback to participants regarding their overall performance in terms of correct answers and the overall time required to solve a clinical vignette.

Treatment:

Device: Smartphone Application

Usual care

No Intervention group

Description:

Students allocated to this arm will not receive any further assistance in studying for this trial's tests.