The continual development of mobile technology and spread of mobile devices have led to the use of personal digital assistants (PDAs) in medical fields. In this report, we describe the applications of PDAs, such as smartphones, in pharmaceutical practice.
Participants included pharmacists in university hospitals (n = 121), community pharmacies (n = 100), and 6th-year pharmacy students (n = 166) who had already successfully completed their clinical rotations. We conducted questionnaires regarding PDA use frequency and interest in future PDA use, which were evaluated using 4-point scales. These two variables were compared statistically between the university hospital pharmacists and community pharmacists. The data from the pharmacy students were analyzed separately using descriptive statistics.
For university hospital pharmacists, the top use for PDAs was as a personal scheduler; for community pharmacists, it was as a dispensing error prevention system. Most university hospital pharmacists reported high interest in future PDA use, mainly for obtaining practice guidelines and obtaining package insert information, while community pharmacists would use PDAs to obtain package insert information. For pharmacy students, PDAs were most often used to obtain package insert information; furthermore, pharmacy students showed high interest in future PDA use during hospital and pharmacy clinical rotations.
As six interests regarding the use of PDAs in future pharmaceutical practice differed between the university hospital and community pharmacists (P < 0.05), PDA software applications should be tailored for each medical setting.
