Abstract

INTRODUCTION: The specificity of work in the emergency medical service requires making quick and accurate diagnostic and therapeutic decisions on the spot. To this end, a variety of educational materials proves to be helpful. This study describes the role of mobile applications used on a daily basis by the Emergency Medical Services (EMS) team. MATERIAL AND METHODS: We conducted a survey in 2018 among EMS workers using an on-line questionnaire. The surveyed group consisted of 91 people (paramedics, nurses and doctors). We expressed the results of our research in the form of arithmetic mean and mean standard errors. We also used the Chi-square test for independence and considered results significant at the p < 0.05 level. RESULTS: Mobile applications are used by 96.7% of respondents (n=88), regardless of gender (x2=0.184; p=0.668), occupation (x2=1.163; p=0.559) or length of service (x2=7.449; p=0.114). The vast majority (92.3%; n=84) consider them necessary in everyday work. Applications for smartphones are most often used (91.2%; n=83), especially in the field of pharmacotherapy. The majority of study participants (68.1%) indicate the need for new graphic mobile applications, especially in the field of paediatric patient management. CONCLUSIONS: The majority of EMS workers nowadays use teaching aids in their daily practice and use is not dependent on sociodemographic factors. Respondents most often use smartphone applications that incorporate pharmacotherapy. Further work on making mobile applications available is desirable.

Authors and Affiliations