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Research Article | DOI: https://doi.org/10.31579/2639-4162/185
1Computer Science Graduate. José Martí Pérez Pediatric Hospital in Sancti Spíritus, Cuba.
2Graduate in Psychology. Assistant Professor. University of Medical Sciences of Sancti Spíritus, Cuba.
3Bachelor of Science Agriculture. MSc. in Attention to Educational Diversity Dr.C Pedagogical. Jose Marti Perez University of Sancti Spiritus, Cuba.
4Specialist Doctor Second Grade Hygiene and Epidemiology. MSc. Higher Medical Education. Consultant Tenured Professor. Sancti Spíritus University of Medical Sciences, Cuba.
*Corresponding Author: Adrian González Méndez, Graduate in Health Technology, Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation profile. Assistant Professor. Associate Researcher. University of Medical Sciences of Sancti Spíritus, Cuba.
Citation: Águila Nephew JF, Guerra Pérez, Deibis B. Machado, Adrian G. Méndez, (2024), Educational Software for The Development of Knowledge About Electrocardiogram in Cuban Doctors, J.General Medicine and Clinical Practice, 7(8); DOI:10.31579/2639-4162/185
Copyright: © 2024, Adrian González Méndez. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Received: 13 May 2024 | Accepted: 05 June 2024 | Published: 14 June 2024
Keywords: educational software; knowledge development; electrocardiogram
Introduction: According to the World Health Organization, Traditional and Complementary Medicine is an important part of prevention and health care; its practice occurs in almost all countries in the world. Objective: Design a software for the development of acupressure for the collaborators of the Cuban Medical Mission in Venezuela.
Methods: An innovative development study was carried out in the sister Republic of Venezuela, in the period from March 10 to May 15, 2023. The study sample was made up of 30 Cuban doctors specializing in Comprehensive General Medicine who worked in different states within Venezuela that gave their consent to participate in the study.
Results: The specialist group was made up of 12 (5 MTN specialist doctors and 7 computer science graduates), who agreed with the software design for its implementation in all the analyzed parameters. In the knowledge related to the generalities of acupressure before the intervention, 6.66% knew that it was the same, a result that changed after the intervention reaching 76.66%.
Conclusions: The educational software fulfilled the use for which it was created as an educational tool, with principles of didactics, becoming more motivating when incorporating knowledge about the topics of acupressure to doctors in service.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Traditional and Complementary Medicine (TCM) is an important part of prevention and health care, its practice occurs in almost all countries in the world. These medicines developed with quality, safety and effectiveness, contribute to ensuring people's access to health care. (1) Therefore, the document WHO TCM Strategies (2002-2005 and 2014-2023), recommends that governments support training activities for health personnel in TCM in a comprehensive manner, which includes the training of TCM skills in response to social needs and in coordination with conventional medicine. (1) While traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is widely practiced in Asian populations such as China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore; In recent decades, many non-Asian countries have also recognized the enormous therapeutic potential of traditional therapies and intensively take advantage of the benefits of these medical practices. In the last three decades, various Western countries such as Germany, the USA, Australia, among others, began the application of various traditional Eastern medicine therapies in public and private health services. (2) In recent years, new policies have been projected aimed at "making Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) become a strategic development sector for the nation, strengthening an economy based on knowledge, which is expressed in significant contributions to exports and the national economy, facilitating broad access to digital content and services by citizens (3).
Currently, the computer networks in the different medical schools have been expanded and have network nodes that guarantee communication and access to medical information through links dedicated to the Infomed Health Telematics Network. They also provide their users with multipop email services, FTP for downloading teaching and computer materials, and Internet browsing. Each of the faculties has its own institutional website, where they publish the information necessary for the development of their teaching-research and extension activity. (3) As a guarantee for the future, the Medical Teaching Program in Venezuela is strengthened, 19 years after its launch, with the collaboration of Cuban specialists, who have planted in this sister land a pool of health professionals, essential to safeguard attention to the people. At the close of this year 2023, and just when we have just celebrated Educator's Day in Cuba, the Medical Teaching Program in Venezuela shows commendable results, another mark of the island's consecrated teachers who leave their mark in the classrooms of the Bolivarian nation. (4) In order to continue contributing to the development of knowledge in this sister nation, our objective is to design software for the development of acupressure for the collaborators of the Cuban Medical Mission in Venezuela.
An innovative development study was carried out in the sister Republic of Venezuela, in the period from March 10 to May 15, 2023. Structured by three stages, where in the first stage bibliographic searches were carried out in indexed databases (PubMed, CUMED, Google Scholar and SCIELO), to learn about didactic means of teaching and learning capable of providing knowledge to doctors providing services on acupressure. In the second stage, the acupressure teaching methods were determined and a diagnosis was developed to know the real state of knowledge in the study subjects. And in the third stage, educational software was designed through a computer platform that fulfilled didactic elements that make the knowledge to be imparted more accessible, it was validated by an expert group and the results obtained with the application of the proposal were evaluated. The study sample was made up of 30 Cuban doctors specializing in Comprehensive General Medicine who worked in different states within Venezuela who gave their consent to participate in the study. Through computer collaborators in different states where they worked, a knowledge diagnostic pre-test was applied, the software was designed and validated by a group of specialists, then the software was delivered to the study subjects for their educational interaction and explained how to work with it, in case of difficulty computer advice was offered. Finally, a post-test was applied to compile the knowledge acquired after working with the proposed software. The software consists of a presentation, a content menu that reflects different topics related to acupuncture, these topics are related to images and figures for a better understanding of the contents (Figure 1)
Figure 1. Images of the educational software for acupressure
This educational intervention was approved by the Directorate of the Cuban Medical Brigade in Venezuelan territory by the training personnel and the Science and Technology personnel.
The specialist group was made up of 12 members (5 doctors specializing in MTN and 7 graduates in computer science), in the indicator’s scientific validity of the topics, relevance, usefulness for learning, applicability and functionality everyone agreed (100%) (Table 1).
| Software Features | OK | Not agree | ||
| No. | % | No. | % | |
| Form of content presentation | 10 | 83.33 | 2 | 16.66 |
| Scientific validity of the topics addressed | 12 | 100 | 0 | 0 |
| Language | eleven | 91.66 | 1 | 8.33 |
| Environmental design | 9 | 75 | 3 | 25 |
| Relevance | 12 | 100 | 0 | 0 |
| Representation of a teaching model | 10 | 83.33 | 2 | 16.66 |
| Utility for learning | 12 | 100 | 0 | 0 |
| Applicability | 12 | 100 | 0 | 0 |
| Content | eleven | 91.66 | 1 | 8.33 |
| Ease | 10 | 83.33 | 2 | 16.66 |
| Functionality | 12 | 100 | 0 | 0 |
| Originality | eleven | 91.66 | 1 | 8.33 |
| User interface | 10 | 83.33 | 2 | 16.66 |
Source: survey of specialists
Table 1. Assessment by specialist criteria
Within the characteristics of the doctors, the age group between 25 and 30 years (56.66%) and the male sex (73.33%) prevailed. 30% worked in the state of Carabobo and 23.33% in the state of Aragua (Table 2).
Source: survey of doctors
Table 2. Distribution of doctors in the study according to age, sex and state where they work in Venezuela
In the knowledge related to the generalities of acupressure before the intervention, 6.66% knew that it was the same, a result that changed after the intervention reaching 76.66% (Table 3).
| Level of knowledge about general acupressure | Before the software | After software | ||
| No. | % | No. | % | |
| Appropriate | 2 | 6.66 | 23 | 76.66 |
| Inappropriate | 28 | 93.33 | 7 | 23.33 |
| Total | 30 | 100 | 30 | 100 |
Source: survey of doctors
Table 3. Doctors according to their knowledge of general acupressure (before and after the intervention with the software)
When analyzing the knowledge that the doctors had about the 18 healing points before the intervention with the software, only 3.33% responded adequately, this indicator after the intervention was improved since 100% identified these healing points (Table 4).
| Level of knowledge about the 18 healing points | Before software | After software | ||
| No. | % | No. | % | |
| Appropriate | 1 | 3.33 | 30 | 100 |
| Inappropriate | 29 | 96.66 | 0 | 0 |
| Total | 30 | 100 | 30 | 100 |
Source: survey of doctors
Table 4. Doctors according to their knowledge of the investigative ability to explain (before and after the intervention with the software)
It is shown in the knowledge about the use of acupressure points before the intervention with the software, where 10% responded to the appropriate indicator, and after the intervention 86.66% of the doctors responded favorably. In relation to the emergency points in the appropriate indicator,
the doctors were completely unknown and once the intervention was finished in this same indicator, the doctors responded adequate in 83.33%. In the indicator on knowledge of the location of points before the intervention with the software, 13.33% responded adequately, after the intervention in this same indicator the level of knowledge improved to 76.66% (Table 5).
| Level of knowledge about the use of acupressure points | Before software | After software | ||
| No. | % | No. | % | |
| Appropriate | 3 | 10 | 26 | 86.66 |
| Inappropriate | 27 | 90 | 4 | 13.33 |
| Total | 30 | 100 | 30 | 100 |
| Level of knowledge about emergency points | Before software | After software | ||
| No. | % | No. | % | |
| Appropriate | 0 | 0 | 25 | 83.33 |
| Inappropriate | 30 | 100 | 5 | 16.66 |
| Total | 30 | 100 | 30 | 100 |
| Level of knowledge about point location | Before software | After software | ||
| No. | % | No. | % | |
| Appropriate | 4 | 13.33 | 23 | 76.66 |
| Inappropriate | 26 | 86.66 | 7 | 23.33 |
| Total | 30 | 100 | 30 | 100 |
Source: survey of doctors
Table 5. Doctors according to knowledge about the use of acupressure points, emergency points and point location (before and after the intervention with the software)
Today the teaching aids have ceased to be the classic "auxiliaries" of the teacher and have become components of the teaching-learning system; It is not simply a semantic change, but a complex renewal of functions and concepts.[5].
In our work, the specialist group was made up of 12 (5 doctors specializing in MTN and 7 graduates in computer science), which agreed with the design of the software for its implementation in all the analyzed parameters. The age group between 25 and 30 years old and the male sex prevailed. Most of the doctors in the study worked in the state of Carabobo, Venezuela. The knowledge that was had before the intervention with the educational software was below the level of knowledge that must be had to use acupressure as an alternative therapy, after the intervention the levels of knowledge were developed allowing a practical approach in the place of work as a healing alternative.
Other studies make positive reference to the use of educational software for development in Traditional Natural Medicine, such as those by Suárez et al., (6) evaluated the usefulness of the Fitosoft multimedia for knowledge about Natural and Traditional Medicine to 60 third-year medical students at the Faculty of Medical Sciences of Bayamo. Before applying multimedia, 70% of the students reflected a low level of knowledge. After using the computer product, 90
The educational software fulfilled the use for which it was created as an educational tool, with principles of didactics, becoming more motivating when incorporating knowledge about the topics of acupressure to doctors in service.
The autors declare that does not exist an interest conflict.
Financing
The authors have not received any financial support for the completion of this work.
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