LabSafety, the Pharmaceutical Laboratory Android Application, for Improving the Knowledge of Pharmacy Students

Currently, traditional paper methods may not effectively be used in education due to lack of access, outdated content, and poor graphics. Education through mobile-based applications is one of the alternative solutions. The objective of this study was to develop and evaluate LabSafety educational application and its effect on promoting the knowledge of pharmacy students. In this interventional study, the LabSafety application was first developed and evaluated for educating students about the safety measures in laboratories. Then, all pharmacy students from Kerman University of Medical Sciences (n = 316) were selected and randomly enrolled into one of three groups using simple random sampling: control (n = 106), traditional (n = 105), and application (n = 105) groups. To assess students' knowledge before and after the intervention, two valid and reliable (Cronbach's Alpha = 0.94 and 0.93, respectively) questionnaires were used. The results of the study showed no significant differences among the mean scores of the participants' knowledge before intervention (p = 0.82). After the intervention, the mean scores of the application group were 5.52 higher than the scores of the traditional group and 7.3 higher than the scores of the control group (p < 0.0001). Age had no significant effect on the posttest scores of the participants (p = 0.52). As a result, the use of this educational application can effectively increase the knowledge of all age groups of pharmacy students regarding safety measures in pharmaceutical laboratories. The mobile-based applications with online and offline access, interactive features, and user-friendly interfaces are more engaging and they can be used complementary to traditional training methods. © 2019 International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, 48(1):44-53, 2020.