Digital Health and Learning in Speech-Language Pathology, Phoniatrics, and Otolaryngology: Survey Study for Designing a Digital Learning Toolbox App

The digital age has introduced opportunities and challenges for clinical education and practice caused by infinite incoming information and novel technologies for health. In the interdisciplinary field of communication sciences and disorders (CSD), engagement with digital topics has emerged slower than in other health fields, and effective strategies for accessing, managing, and focusing on digital resources are greatly needed. We aimed to conceptualize and investigate preferences of stakeholders regarding a digital learning toolbox, an app containing a library of current resources for CSD. This cross-sectional survey study conducted in German-speaking countries investigated professional and student perceptions and preferences regarding such an app's features, functions, content, and associated concerns. An open web-based survey was disseminated to professionals and students in the field of CSD, including speech-language pathologists (SLPs; German: Logopäd*innen), speech-language pathology students, phoniatricians, otolaryngologists, and medical students. Insights into preferences and perceptions across professions, generations, and years of experience regarding a proposed app were investigated. Of the 164 participants, an overwhelming majority (n=162, 98.8%) indicated readiness to use such an app, and most participants (n=159, 96.9%) perceived the proposed app to be helpful. Participants positively rated app functions that would increase utility (eg, tutorial, quality rating function, filters based on content or topic, and digital format); however, they had varied opinions regarding an app community feature. Regarding app settings, most participants rated the option to share digital resources through social media links (144/164, 87.8%), receive and manage push notifications (130/164, 79.3%), and report technical issues (160/164, 97.6%) positively. However, significant variance was noted across professions (H =8.006; P=.046) and generations (H =9.309; P=.03) regarding a username-password function, with SLPs indicating greater perceived usefulness in comparison to speech-language pathology students (P=.045), as was demonstrated by Generation X versus Generation Z (P=.04). Participants perceived a range of clinical topics to be important; however, significant variance was observed across professions, between physicians and SLPs regarding the topic of diagnostics (H =9.098; P=.03) and therapy (H =21.236; P