Knowledge, Attitudes and Perspectives among senior Nurse students for the use of mHealth. A quantitative study in Greece and Cyprus

Abstract

mHealth is relatively new concept with rapid increase in the past years, where smartphones and tablets where introduced. Smartphones have turned into hand-held computers, where one now can download large amount of different apps that are related to health, with just a few touches on the smartphone screen. In 2016, it is estimated that more than 3.2 billion of mHealth apps were downloaded, which are 7% more the year before (research2guidance, 2016). Some apps can be used for the management of different chronic diseases, to reduce the cost of treatment, and at the same time increase the treatments’ outcomes. The users are able to manage their disease from an app, anytime and anyplace. Nevertheless the user must be able to recognize that the application cannot suggest him/her with treatments. Nurse students are the backbone of the hospital, but also the community (as they also give treatment at patient’s houses or nursing homes). Nurses are often responsible for the patients’ treatment and training; this includes not only medication, but as well as the best usage of patients’ tools such as mHealth apps. Unfortunately Greece and Cyprus are lacking educational courses in this field, as it can be seen from the curricular of Technological Educational Institute of Crete (TEI Crete) and Cyprus University of Technology (CUT) (CUT, 2016; TEI Crete, 2017).

The aim of the presented study is to identify the knowledge and attitudes of senior nurses’ students in mHealth, so that this can inform how mHealth in the future can be introduced in the nursing schools curriculum. Online questionnaires were used to obtain information from senior nurse students from TEI Crete and CUT. 61.7 % of the students were smartphones users, 90.5% of these were using their smartphones for social media and only 38.3% had downloaded a mHealth app. When the students were asked how satisfied they are with their knowledge on mHealth, the CUT students’ mean rank was 46.25 while the TEI Crete students’ was 40.16 (U=490.5, p=0.16). Additionally when they where ask if they want to learn more about mHealth, the CUT students were more positive with mean rank 58.61 while the mean rank of TEI Crete was 36.63 (U=268, p>0.001). The rapid development of mHealth from no medical related users, such us chronic patients, is addressing new challenges in health care. Nurse students must be well prepared and ready to give advice on how to use this rapid developing technology. This implies that nurse educators must give the nurse students courses and practice in this emerging field of self-management.

This study shows that the investigated nursing schools have not included education about the emerging mHealth field into their curriculums, and it is assumed that this is the case for most nursing schools as well. Additionally no medical related users are more into using those kinds of applications creating a gap between nurses and patients.