Digital Health Training, Attitudes and Intentions to Use It among Romanian Medical Students: A Study Performed during COVID-19 Pandemic.

Abstract

This study focuses on medical students from the University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, and has three objectives. First, it evaluates the opinions of medical students regarding their previous training as well as their needs for future training in the field of digital health. Second, it assesses their attitudes regarding digital health and their intention to use digital tools as physicians. Lastly, the interrelationship between these issues as well as the socio-demographic factors which influence them are investigated. A cross-sectional survey was performed during June-August 2021 among fifth and sixth year students of the Faculty of Medicine from the Iuliu Hațieganu University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. Anonymous online questionnaires were used which were filled in by 306 students. Less than half of the participating students declared that they benefited from training or different practical examples during medical education regarding the use of digital tools in different medical areas, while the majority said that they would like to receive more training in the field of digital health. A total of 58.2% said that they totally agree with the introduction of a formal training in the medical curricula regarding digital health. Many students declared positive attitudes toward the use of digital tools in different domains within the medical field and intention to use digital tools as physicians; several differences were noted, including gender, year of study, type of domain, and previous training with regard to the use of digital tools in those domains. Moreover, the need for future training and the desire for the introduction of a formal training program into the medical curricula with regard to this field were stronger among those with more positive attitudes and higher intentions to use digital tools in their medical activity. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study from Romania which investigated the training, attitudes, and intentions regarding the use of digital health among Romanian medical students, and offers valuable information to guide the education of medical students.