Methodology of development and students' perceptions of a psychiatry educational smartphone application

The usage of Smartphones and smartphone applications in the recent decade has indeed become more prevalent. Previous research has highlighted the lack of critical appraisal of new applications. In addition, previous research has highlighted a method of using just the Internet Browser and a text editor to create an application, but this does not eliminate the challenges faced by clinicians. In addition, even though there has been a high rate of smartphone applications usage and acceptance, it is common knowledge that it would cost clinicians as well as their centers a lot to develop smartphone applications that could be catered to their needs, and help them in their daily educational needs.

The objectives of the current research are thus to highlight a cost-effective methodology of development of interactive education smartphone applications, and also to determine whether medical students are receptive towards having smartphone applications and their perspectives with regards to the contents within.

In this study, we will elaborate how the Mastering Psychiatry Online Portal and web-based mobile application were developed using HTML5 as the core programming language. The online portal and web-based application was launched in July 2012 and usage data were obtained. Subsequently, a native application was developed, as it was funded by an educational grant and students are recruited after their end of posting clinical examination to fill up a survey questionnaire relating to perspectives.

Our initial analytical results showed that since inception to date, for the online portal, there have been a total of 15,803 views, with a total of 2,109 copies of the online textbook being downloaded. As for the online videos, 5,895 viewers have watched the training videos from the start till the end. 722 users have accessed the mobile textbook application. A total of 185 students participated in the perspective survey, with the majority having positive perspectives about the implementation of a smartphone application in psychiatry.

This is one of the few studies that describe how an educational application could be developed using a simple and cost effective methodology and this study has also demonstrated students' perspectives towards Smartphone in psychiatric education. Our methods might apply to future research involving the use of technology in education.