Nursing students' experience of using a personal digital assistant (PDA) in clinical practice - An intervention study

Background: A personal digital assistant (PDA) is a multifunctional information and communication tool allowing nursing students to keep up to date with expanding health related knowledge. Objectives: This study was aimed at exploring nursing students' experience of using a PDA in clinical practice. Method: In this intervention study, nursing students (n=67) used PDAs during a period of 15 weeks, replied to questionnaires, and participated in focus group interviews. Results: The PDA was found to support nursing students in clinical practice and to have the potential to be a useful tool with benefits for both the patients and for the students. The PDA was regarded as useful, and was presumed to imply increased confidence and time savings, and contribute to improved patient safety and quality of care. Conclusions: With available mobile technology, nursing students would be able to access necessary information, independent of time and place. Therefore, it is important that stakeholders and educators facilitate the use of PDAs to support nursing students during their clinical practice, in order to prepare them for their future work, and to continuously improve the safety and quality of healthcare. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.