A. Alves Lopes1
1Escola Superior de Saúde do Alcoitão - Alcoitão School of Health Sciences, Physiotherapy, Estoril, Portugal
Background: In face of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Alcoitão School of Health Sciences (ESSA) interrupted all classroom activities, including clinical activities, this context created also the need to promote in students new knowledge/skills/attitudes related to the new professional reality.
Purpose: To facilitate easy access to updated information related to COVID-19 pandemic (health and professional guidelines, media resources) the Department of Physiotherapy decided to develop and implement a Mobile App available to all the physiotherapy students.
Methods: The mobile app was created using a free online tool (glideapps.com) and divided into 5 sections: Health guidelines, professional resources, media (videos and podcasts), online sessions (topic related webinars) and additional educational resources. We created and used an online questionnaire to assess student satisfaction with the different dimensions (Design, Layout, Usability, Contents) related to the app usage.
Results: The students survey (N=134, 61% response rate) revealed a very favourable opinion regarding the design (91,7% Agree/ Strongly agreed), layout (87,3% Agree/ Strongly agreed) and usability (88,8% Agree/ Strongly agreed). In relation to the content of the Mobile App the students consider it was adequate and relevant (89,55% Agree/ Strongly agreed) and also the overall purpose of the App to be adequate and relevant (91% Agree/ Strongly agreed).
Conclusion(s): Based on the positive input by the students, we consider that the implementation to have been successful. Next steps are, update the content based on evidence and resources available related to the pandemic and to create an international version (English version) of the app to be freely available to the Physiotherapy educational and professional context.
Implications: After this experience we will try to disseminate more the use of mobile apps in education and clinical settings, involving the students in the different stages of the development process.
Funding, acknowledgements: No funding was needed.
Keywords: Mobile App, COVID-19, Education
Topic: COVID-19
Did this work require ethics approval? No
Institution: Escola Superior de Saúde do Alcoitão
Committee: Escola Superior de Saúde do Alcoitão
Reason: Addresses new and unique developments in practice, education and resources.
All authors, affiliations and abstracts have been published as submitted.
