Accepted for/Published in: JMIR mHealth and uHealth
Date Submitted: Jul 23, 2020
Date Accepted: Nov 20, 2020
Patterns and Perceptions of Smartphone Use Amongst US Academic Neurologists: Questionnaire Survey
ABSTRACT
Background:
Smartphone technology is ubiquitous throughout neurologic practices. However, the ways in which these devices are utilized for patient care related activities are not well defined.
Objective:
To characterize current patterns of smartphone use and perception of utility for patient care related activities among academic neurology trainees and attending physicians.
Methods:
We developed a 31-item electronic questionnaire to address these questions and invited neurology trainees and attendings of all U.S.-based residency programs to participate. We summarized descriptive statistics for respondents and specifically compared responses between trainees and attending physicians.
Results:
We received 213 responses, including 112 trainees and 87 attending neurologists. Neurology trainees reported more frequent use of their smartphone for patient-care related activities than attending neurologists (75% and 60% use several times per day, P=0.03), including for use during the physical exam more than once per week (36% and 14%, P=0.03). Neurology trainees reported a greater likelihood of using their smartphones in the future than attending neurologists (72% and 49%, very likely, P=0.005). A majority of respondents in both groups reported their smartphones as “very useful” or “essential” for completion of patient care related activities (75% and 60%, P=0.12). The groups differed in the frequencies they use their devices for specific patient-care related activities. Regarding future application development, vision, language, mental status, and cranial nerve testing were rated as being potentially the most useful to aid in the performance of the neurologic exam.
Conclusions:
Smartphones are used frequently and subjectively perceived to be highly useful by academic neurologists. Trainees tend to utilize their devices more frequently than attendings. Our results suggest specific avenues for future technological development to improve smartphone use for patient-care related activities.
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© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.