Dental Apps for Smartphones: New Way of Providing Services and Education

Isabella Marques Faria,Mariana Coutinho Sancas,Andréa Vaz Braga Pintor,Laura Salignac Guimarães Primo

doi:10.4236/ce.2018.95050

Abstract

Objective: To review the literature about dental applications (DAPP) for smartphones (SP) and search/describe DAPP available in Portuguese, in 3 operating systems. Methods: Aiming the review, the terms “smartphones”, “app” and “dentistry” were searched in the databases Pubmed, Virtual Health Library (BVS) and Google Scholar. Based on the review results, DAPP were searched for teaching and learning (TL), clinical practice (CP), patient orientation (PO) and professional update (PU), in Portuguese, in the Android, iOS and Windows systems. In 3 SP (iPhone 5S with iOS 9.3.5; Samsung Galaxy A5 6 2016 with Android; Microsoft-RM-1109 with Windows Phone 8.1 Update2) the term “dentistry” was inserted in APP searches. Results: Forty-three papers were included in the review and 215 DAPP were selected: 120 on Android, 90 on iOS, and 5 on Windows. DAPP were classified according to the focus in: CP (n = 99); PO (n = 6); CP/PO (n = 64); TL/CP (n = 6); TL (n = 38); TL/CP/PO (n = 1) And PU and TL (n = 1). The majority of the DAPP was not validated by any Dental institution (93.02%) and was no cost way for users (81.86%), although only 58.14 were updated. Conclusion: Most of the papers showed as main focus CP, TL and PO. The DAPP available in Portuguese for Dentistry were mostly developed for clinical practice, with a lack of those for patient orientation and teaching and learning. Future Dental APP should provide evidence-based, validated, updated data.

Highlights

Smartphones have been one of the success stories of the last decade
The articles published in English or Portuguese that considered the use of dental applications (DAPP) for the clinical practice, patient orientation and teaching and learning process were selected for reading
The forty papers selected based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria, were published between 2010 and 2017, showing a growing interest in recent literature regarding the use of mobile applications in Dentistry

Summary

Introduction

They are mobile phones with an integrated computer capable of performing a wide variety of tasks, including downloading various applications that are not typically associated with a mobile phone (Franko, 2011). The development of mobile computing applications for smartphones represents an interesting and effective way to provide a new technological tool and reach the desired target audience (Tibes, Dias, & Zem-Mascarenhas, 2014). With the development of mobile applications designed for the medical and dental areas, healthcare professionals have been experiencing a new way of providing services and teaching (Khatoon, Hill & Walmsley, 2015). Its development has created new opportunities to integrate mobile technology into daily clinical practice (Baheti & Toshniwal, 2014)

Methods

Results

Conclusion