The Prevalence of Use of Personal Digital Assistants (PDA) by Clinical Dietitians in Delaware Valley

Abstract

ObjectiveThe first purpose of this study was to examine the prevalence of PDA use among clinical dietitians and identify the most commonly reported applications. Secondly, we aimed to establish the most commonly cited reasons for choosing not to use PDAs at work. Finally, we analyzed the influence of dietitian age and years of experience on their tendency to use a PDA at work.MethodsEmail invitations were sent to randomly selected 77 Clinical dietitians in the Delaware Valley. 40 of them responded by completed an online survey.ResultsForty percent of respondents reported use of a PDA compared with 60% of respondents who did not. Among the clinical dietitians using PDAs, 62.5% used nutrition assessment tools, such as diet assessment, 25% used nutrition reference tools, and 12.5% used medical dictionaries. Of the 60% of the dietitians who do not use PDAs for work, 33% reported they felt the PDA was not valuable for their work, 25% stated PDAs were too expensive, and 21% reported lack of knowledge in PDA operation. The proportion of PDA users to non users for this study was independent of age (p = 0.17) and years of experience (p = 0.90).ConclusionPDAs are valuable tools. However, the results of this study suggest that use of PDAs is not common among clinical dietitians. Age and years of clinical experience do not appear to influence the tendency to use PDAs, suggesting that employer attempts to integrate PDAs to the work place would be well received across the workforce.