The use of mobile smart devices and medical apps in the family practice setting

In this study smartphones/tablet PCs and medical application utilization by family physicians and factors concerning the acceptance of medical application in family practice setting have been studied.

One hundred seventy-six participants voluntarily agreed to fill out a 27-item questionnaire. Data were analysed with descriptive statistics and eight items (acceptability of utilization of applications) revealed Cronbach's alpha of 0.965 and the factor analysis showed one factor explaining 80.6% of total variance.

The mean age of respondents was 35.7 [standard deviation (SD) = 8.12; min-max = 24-52], 79 were male (45.9%) and 88 female (51.2%), 56 (32.5%) were single and 113 (65.7%) married, and the mean experience duration as a physician was 11.1 years (SD = 11.1; min-max = 1-28). One hundred sixty-seven (97.1%) had a smartphone and/or tablet PC. Smartphone and/or tablet PC were used since 3.7 (SD = 2.17; min-max = 0-12) years. Sixty-one (35.5%) felt that smartphone and/or tablet PC are very important, 92 (53.5%) important, 2 (1.2%) unimportant and 12 (7%) were undecided about this. One hundred eleven (64.5%) participants had a medical application on the smartphone and 66 (38.4%) on the tablet PC. They used 1.7 (SD = 2.04; min-max = 0-10) medical applications for 1.45 (SD = 2.53; min-max = 0-25) times on average. Eighty respondents (66.7%) used a medical application for any medical problem.

Almost all family physicians used smartphone and/or tablet PC during daily practice, and the reason of use was commonly for communication and Internet purposes. Usage during working hours was limited, but medical apps were perceived mainly positively for receiving medical information via Internet. Looking at the medical apps' acceptability scale, participants were in agreement with the security, cost, contents' quality, ease of use, support, ease of finding, ease of accessing and motivation to use medical applications.