TY - JOUR
T1 - Mobile applications in medical education
T2 - A systematic review and meta-analysis
AU - Chandran, Viji Pulikkel
AU - Balakrishnan, Athira
AU - Rashid, Muhammed
AU - Kulyadi, Girish Pai
AU - Khan, Sohil
AU - Devi, Elsa Sanatombi
AU - Nair, Sreedharan
AU - Thunga, Girish
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Chandran et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
PY - 2022/3
Y1 - 2022/3
N2 - OBJECTIVE: This review evaluates the effectiveness of smartphone applications in improving academic performance and clinical practice among healthcare professionals and students.METHODS: This study followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. Articles were retrieved from PubMed, Scopus, and Cochrane library through a comprehensive search strategy. Studies that included medical, dental, nursing, allied healthcare professional, undergraduates, postgraduates, and interns from the same disciplines who used mobile applications for their academic learning and/or daily clinical practice were considered.RESULTS: 52 studies with a total of 4057 learner participants were included in this review. 33 studies (15 RCTs, 1 cluster RCT, 7 quasi-experimental studies, 9 interventional cohort studies and 1 cross-sectional study) reported that mobile applications were an effective tool that contributed to a significant improvement in the knowledge level of the participants. The pooled effect of 15 studies with 962 participants showed that the knowledge score improved significantly in the group using mobile applications when compared to the group who did not use mobile applications (SMD = 0.94, 95% CI = 0.57 to1.31, P<0.00001). 19 studies (11 RCTs, 3 quasi-experimental studies and 5 interventional cohort studies) reported that mobile applications were effective in significantly improving skills among the participants.CONCLUSION: Mobile applications are effective tools in enhancing knowledge and skills. They can be considered as effective adjunct tools in medical education by considering their low expense, high versatility, reduced dependency on regional or site boundaries, online and offline, simulation, and flexible learning features of mobile apps.
AB - OBJECTIVE: This review evaluates the effectiveness of smartphone applications in improving academic performance and clinical practice among healthcare professionals and students.METHODS: This study followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. Articles were retrieved from PubMed, Scopus, and Cochrane library through a comprehensive search strategy. Studies that included medical, dental, nursing, allied healthcare professional, undergraduates, postgraduates, and interns from the same disciplines who used mobile applications for their academic learning and/or daily clinical practice were considered.RESULTS: 52 studies with a total of 4057 learner participants were included in this review. 33 studies (15 RCTs, 1 cluster RCT, 7 quasi-experimental studies, 9 interventional cohort studies and 1 cross-sectional study) reported that mobile applications were an effective tool that contributed to a significant improvement in the knowledge level of the participants. The pooled effect of 15 studies with 962 participants showed that the knowledge score improved significantly in the group using mobile applications when compared to the group who did not use mobile applications (SMD = 0.94, 95% CI = 0.57 to1.31, P<0.00001). 19 studies (11 RCTs, 3 quasi-experimental studies and 5 interventional cohort studies) reported that mobile applications were effective in significantly improving skills among the participants.CONCLUSION: Mobile applications are effective tools in enhancing knowledge and skills. They can be considered as effective adjunct tools in medical education by considering their low expense, high versatility, reduced dependency on regional or site boundaries, online and offline, simulation, and flexible learning features of mobile apps.
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U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0265927
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0265927
M3 - Review article
C2 - 35324994
AN - SCOPUS:85126972365
SN - 1932-6203
VL - 17
SP - e0265927
JO - PLoS One
JF - PLoS One
IS - 3
M1 - e0265927
ER -