Medical students and e-Health

Stud Health Technol Inform. 2012:180:1150-2.

Abstract

The term eHealth is widely used in both scientific literature and in everyday life. There are many activities related to eHealth both globally and in Europe. In Croatia, eHealth is a priority area of the eCroatia programme. There is no doubt that eHealth is the environment where present and prospective medical students will work after leaving medical schools. In order to find out what medical students think eHealth is and which information about eHealth reach them, we started this project with second year medical students in academic year 2010/2011. At the very beginning of medical informatics course, students were asked to write an essay with the title "eHealth" based on their existing knowledge and experiences on this topic. Till now 147 written contributions were analyzed. We performed lexicometric analysis and correspondence analysis using French software Dtm-Vic for textual analysis. Very modest vocabulary and choice of words imply that students have little personal experience and knowledge about eHealth. Students who had medical secondary school education described eHealth differently, probably because they encounter some of eHealth applications while attending lectures in health care institutions.

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Attitude of Health Personnel*
  • Croatia
  • Educational Measurement / statistics & numerical data*
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Medical Informatics / education*
  • Students, Medical / statistics & numerical data*
  • Telemedicine*
  • Young Adult