Implementation of a Smartphone Application in Medical Education (iSTART)

May 14, 2016 updated by: Felipe Martinez, Universidad de Valparaiso

Implementing a Smartphone Application to Optimise Academic Performance Among Medical Students: A Randomised Trial

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.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

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.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

80

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • Chile
    • Viña del Mar
      • Reñaca, Viña del Mar, Chile
        • Campus de la Salud, Universidad de Valparaiso

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

18 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

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

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Refusal to participate.

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: Double

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Smartphone application
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.
Device: Smartphone Application
Smartphone application developed by internists and engineers. Will be made available on iOS(R) and Android(R) operating systems.
No Intervention: Usual care
Students allocated to this arm will not receive any further assistance in studying for this trial's tests.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Academic Performance
Time Frame: 4 weeks after randomisation
Overall percentage of correct responses in a standardised test.
4 weeks after randomisation

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Time to complete tests
Time Frame: 4 weeks after randomisation
Time required by students to complete a 90-question multiple-choice test.
4 weeks after randomisation

Other Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Application adherence
Time Frame: 4 weeks after randomisation
Mean time spent using the application.
4 weeks after randomisation
Application adherence
Time Frame: 4 weeks after randomisation
Mean number of questions answered by study participants.
4 weeks after randomisation

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Universidad de Valparaiso

Collaborators

Laboratorio de Ingeniería y Tecnología (LABITEC)

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Felipe Martinez, M.D., M.Sc., Universidad de Valparaiso

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Helpful Links

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start

April 1, 2016

Primary Completion (Actual)

May 1, 2016

Study Completion (Actual)

May 1, 2016

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

March 27, 2016

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

March 27, 2016

First Posted (Estimate)

March 30, 2016

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Estimate)

May 17, 2016

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

May 14, 2016

Last Verified

May 1, 2016

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Other Study ID Numbers

  • CEC098-16

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

NO

IPD Plan Description

There is currently no plan to make individual participant data available.

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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