Quality assessment of mobile phone applications aimed at dental education

Abstract

Purpose: evaluate mobile applications aimed at dental education. Methods: Three searches were conducted in each online store, on the leading platforms (iOS and Android), using the keywords: “Dental Teaching”; “Dental Education” and “Learning in Dentistry”. The search was carried out in Portuguese. Results: 44 applications were found on the iOS operating system using the three keywords, but only three were included. In the Android operating system, 743 applications were found (388 after removing triplicates), and only three were included in the research. In total, of the six applications, four were evaluated, as there were two duplicates. The application that obtained the highest score in the “Design” category was “iDent”, which also received the best performance in the “Instructions” and “Security” aspects. Regarding usability, the application that stood out the most was “Odontologia Concursos”. The application ranked first, according to the evaluation criteria, was RadioXtudy (13.4 points), followed by iDent (12.4 points), Odontologia Concursos (10 points) and Odonto Questões (7.1 points). Conclusions: With this study, it was possible to establish an updated overview of the applications available in the central operating systems' virtual stores related to dental education. Furthermore, it was observed that the collection of mobile applications available for this purpose on the leading search platforms is insufficient, requiring developers to provide tools adapted to the needs of students.