Investigating the effect of an educational mobile application on the learning of medical interns in the general surgery ward

Abstract

Background: This study aimed to determine the effect of using mobile phone-based educational aid software on the learning rate of medical interns in the general surgery department.Method: This study was conducted on two groups of 70 general medicine interns in the general surgery department during two 8-month periods. The first and second group was educated using traditional and application-based method, respectively.Results: The mean±SD age of the participants were 24.71 ± 3.19 and 25.25 ± 2.07 years for the app-based group and the traditional group, respectively. There were no significant differences between the two groups in terms of age (P = 0.247) or gender (P = 0.175). The score of the basic science test (App-group: 124.59 ± 26.56 vs. Traditional group: 119.06 ± 16.02) and the score of the pre-internship test (App-group: 122.06 ± 22.12 vs. Traditional group: 120.16 ± 16.13) did not show a significant difference between the intervention and control groups (P =0.139, P =0.562). Still, the time elapsed since the internship in the intervention group (8.46 ± 3.46 months) was significantly more than the control group (6.29 ± 4.10 months, P=0.001). A significant increase in the post-test score was found in both groups (P<0.001). There was no significant difference regarding the pre-test results (P=0.731); however, the post-test score was significantly higher in the intervention group compared to the controls (P<0.001).Conclusion: This study showed that training based on mobile software can be an effective role in training program's medical intern in general surgery department.

Keywords

• educational technology
• general surgery
• medical education