The use of medical and drug information software programs for personal digital assistants among pharmacy students in a Malaysian pharmacy school

BackgroundThe use of medical and drug information software programs for Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) is increasing. The technological advances in recent years may have prompted this increase. Many studies have been conducted in developed countries about the use of PDAs among health care professionals and medical and pharmacy students, but similar studies in developing countries are lacking.ObjectivesTo explore the use of medical software programs for PDA among pharmacy students in their clinical clerkships as well as barriers and facilitators to PDA use.MethodsA descriptive, cross-sectional, exploratory study was conducted. A 56-item face- and content-validated, self-administered, and anonymous questionnaire was distributed to the students in the third and fourth years of a pharmacy program at the International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM).ResultsThe response rate was 84.8%. The majority of respondents reported using PDAs (64.1%) and medical/drug information software programs for PDAs (61.5%). Android was the operating system used by the majority of PDAs users (87.5%), and free download websites were the most used source for these programs (93.1%). Micromedex was the most commonly used software (66.7%). PDA cost is the major barrier to use (chosen as barrier by 77.8% of the non-users).ConclusionPharmacy students use medical software programs for PDAs for many clinical tasks and the devices were perceived positively by students who do not use PDAs. The acquisition of a PDA is the major determinant of medical software PDA programs use because of the availability of free versions of these software programs.