Investigating a Newly Developed Educational Orthopedic Application for Medical Interns
Abstract BackgroundIn COVID 19 era, the literature on e-learning- or particularly smartphone (m-learning)- has considerably increased its attention on the subject of medical knowledge transfer. Regarding the importance of the orthopedic knowledge for general practitioners and the inadequacy of the orthopedics internship duration in Mashhad University of Medical Sciences (MUMS), we have developed and investigated a smartphone orthopedic educational application, named “Orthobox”.MethodsIn a quasi-clinical before-after trial study, we investigated the application benefits for medical interns attending MUMS orthopedic departments. A total of 120 students (64 and 56 students in control and case groups respectively) were recruited. The application consists of five main parts of medication, common order samples, common prescriptions, cast and splint types, and educational movies. Students who passed the course without getting access to the application (control group) and students who were using application during the course (case group) were defined, and comparison was done between them objectively-through final exam score comparison and subjectively-through Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) questionnaire score comparison. Besides, using case group students’ activity report provided by the application panel, correlational analysis was done on their amount of activity on each of the main parts of the application and the corresponding question exam and VAS score separately.ResultsThe case group of the study generally achieved higher final exam scores, mainly on Order question score (P value<0.001). Total VAS scores were also greater in case group (P value =0.001). It has also been identified that there is a notable positive trend between student’s amount of usage of the application and their final exam scores through correlational analysis. This correlation was not significant about students’ application visit numbers and VAS scores. ConclusionThese results on one hand, suggest that m-learning has got the potential to improve students’ medical knowledge and skills by organizing must-to-learn content specified for intern students of orthopedics and on the other hand, cause students more satisfied by their education.Level of evidence: Level III (Evidence obtained from well-designed controlled trials without randomization (i.e. quasi-experimental).