USE OF MOBILE DEVICES FOR HEALTH CARE INFORMATION BY POST GRADUATE PHYSIOTHERAPY STUDENTS

Abstract

Background: The availability and use of electronic devices among the students of higher education have been continuing to grow. The devices connect the users to the world instantly, allow access to information, and enable interactivity with others. The uses of these devices like E-book reader, Personal Digital Assistant or tablet/iPad are playing an important role, especially in their academic lives. This survey aimed to find the commonly used mobile devices among post graduate physiotherapy students, their purpose of use and the modes of obtaining health-care information along with the barriers they face during this. Methodology: A cross sectional survey study was conducted for which a questionnaire was designed based on studies done about use of mobile-devices among health care providers. Convenience sampling was used and the questionnaire was distributed among 70 post graduate physiotherapy students of various physiotherapy colleges of Gujarat. Result: It was found that among the post graduate students 52% students used their cell phones as a choice of mobile device.1% students used tablets for their data collection of research studies. Cell phones were mostly used for WhatsApp (61%) and Facebook, (30%). 51% used mobile devices more than once a day to access medical resources. 71% used mobile devices to search for journals and articles while 70% use it for finding information about physiotherapy techniques. 65% preferred using Google scholar as a source of medical information. Conclusion: Cell phones are the commonly used mobile devices among post graduate physiotherapy students. Moreover, there is lack of awareness among them about the resources available. There is a need to increase awareness regarding Handheld computers which are becoming an important part of patient care and documentation through electronic order entry and patient tracking applications and also about Mobile health (m-health).