Evaluation of a smartphone application to improve medical certification of the cause of death.

Abstract

INTRODUCTION A smartphone application named AtestaDO was developed to support physicians with medical certification of the cause of death. The objective of this study is to evaluate the acceptability of the app. METHODS Physicians were invited to attend meetings on the proper certification of cause of death, and to evaluate the application in a national workshop in Natal (first stage) and in two large hospitals in Belo Horizonte (second and third stages). RESULTS In Natal, 82% of 38 physicians had more than 20 years of experience and in Belo Horizonte, more than 67% of 58 physicians had less than 5 years of experience. The sections "Application interface", "How to certify the causes of death", "Practice with exercises" and "Other information for physicians" were positively evaluated by more than 50% of physicians in Belo Horizonte. In Natal, all sections were positively evaluated by at least 80% of participants. More than 70% of the participants in both Natal and the second stage of Belo Horizonte indicated they would possibly use AtestaDO to guide filling of a death certificate. The probability of using AtestaDO to teach classes on filling death certificates was 83.3% for Natal's physicians but less than 60% in Belo Horizonte. In the three stages, most physicians would recommend using the application to other colleagues. CONCLUSION The evaluation of AtestaDO showed good acceptability. We expect that the use of this tool enables improvements in medical certification of causes of death.