European Journal of Dental Education最新文献

Introduction: This paper is aiming to present an experiment involving odontology students, teachers and pupils in elementary grades to investigate the potential benefits of co-design activities to create preventive materials to promote oral health in schools.

Materials and methods: A total of, 110 fourth-year students, 47 volunteers teachers and 698 pupils in Grades 1 and 2 participated in the study. This work led to the creation and distribution to teachers of appropriate tools on the dental health. We wanted to assess how the odontology students felt during this co-design project. Each of them was asked to complete the same questionnaire twice, at the beginning and at the end of the project.

Results: Our results show that they consider that the children and their parents' knowledge of oral health is largely inadequate. Moreover, a large majority of them (75%) felt that their participation would have a positive impact on the children's future behaviour and on their own future professional practice.

Discussion: The students' participation in this experiment in co-designing with teachers shows that offering odontology students a different kind of learning, along the lines of what is being done in the United Kingdom with service-learning, can be beneficial both for them and for the end-users.

Conclusion: The participation of dental students in the specific educational training activity has a positive and significant impact of their mental representation and we can hope that the emergence of this paradigm of participatory design, also known as co-creation, can lead to strong and lasting changes in health behaviours.

Objectives: To evaluate the performance of a Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT) in generating scientific abstracts in dentistry.

Methods: Ten scientific articles in dental radiology had their original abstracts collected, while another 10 articles had their methodology and results added to a ChatGPT prompt to generate an abstract. All abstracts were randomised and compiled into a single file for subsequent assessment. Five evaluators classified whether the abstract was generated by a human using a 5-point scale and provided justifications within seven aspects: formatting, information accuracy, orthography, punctuation, terminology, text fluency, and writing style. Furthermore, an online GPT detector provided "Human Score" values, and a plagiarism detector assessed similarity with existing literature.

Results: Sensitivity values for detecting human writing ranged from 0.20 to 0.70, with a mean of 0.58; specificity values ranged from 0.40 to 0.90, with a mean of 0.62; and accuracy values ranged from 0.50 to 0.80, with a mean of 0.60. Orthography and Punctuation were the most indicated aspects for the abstract generated by ChatGPT. The GPT detector revealed confidence levels for a "Human Score" of 16.9% for the AI-generated texts and plagiarism levels averaging 35%.

Conclusion: The GPT exhibited commendable performance in generating scientific abstracts when evaluated by humans, as the generated abstracts were indistinguishable from those generated by humans. When evaluated by an online GPT detector, the use of GPT became apparent.

Background: The literature on the use of social media in oral health education has grown in recent years; however, the research activity on this topic has not been comprehensibly summarised. This scoping review aimed to map the available literature on students' and faculty's use of social media in oral health education across the platforms.

Methods: This review was guided by Arksey and O'Malley's scoping review framework and adhered to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extensions for scoping reviews (PRISMA-ScR). Seven databases were searched to include literature until October 2023. Studies were included if they were published in English and focused on using social media in oral health education. Two independent reviewers screened for article eligibility and extracted the relevant data.

Results: The review included 40 articles published between January 2008 and October 2023. Most studies used quantitative approaches, did not specify the study design, were noninterventional and reported on undergraduate dental students' use of social media. Included studies centred on patterns of use, views and actual effectiveness of social media. YouTube emerged as the most frequently used platform, followed by Podcast, Facebook and WhatsApp.

Conclusions: The use of social media in oral health education was found to be useful based on direct and indirect outcome measures. However, robust research designs are required to further evaluate the impact of social media on oral health education.

Introduction: Access cavity preparation is a crucial step in root canal treatment but is one of the most complex procedures in the curriculum to learn, with students often reporting spatial orientation difficulties during drilling. The present study aimed to evaluate the influence of spatial abilities on the preparation of endodontic access cavities among third-year dental students.

Materials and methods: Students from Lyon dental faculty participated voluntarily. The mental rotation test (MRT) evaluated spatial ability. Students prepared access cavities on 3D-printed mandibular molars, subsequently scanned and assessed against eight evaluation points, including morphology, canal access, floor preservation and convergence angle. Principal component analysis (PCA) assessed dataset variations.

Results: A total of 43 volunteers participated. PCA revealed two principal components accounting for 80.8% of variations: the first PC primarily consisted of MRT score (64.3%) and morphology (14.1%); the second comprised operative time (46.1%) and morphology (18.0%). There were significant differences in morphology based on MRT scores, but no correlation was found between other parameters.

Discussion: Lower MRT scores were associated with larger cavity preparations, raising questions about potential curriculum adaptations to enhance spatial reasoning. The operative time was not correlated with higher MRT scores but did contribute to variations in cavity morphology.

Conclusion: Spatial abilities have a substantial impact on the quality of endodontic access cavity preparations; further studies should evaluate if the incorporation of 3D atlas exercises could be beneficial.

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic had extensive influence on dental education. UK dental schools were compelled to respond with substantial adaptations to clinical training approaches and environments to mitigate educational impact.

Materials and methods: The Surveying Pandemic Education Response in Higher Education Dental Schools (SPEARHEAD) study aimed to retrospectively evaluate the diverse responses of UK dental schools to the COVID-19 pandemic. All UK dental schools were invited to participate in semi-structured interviews to ascertain institutional responses, with transcripts subjected to thematic framework analysis.

Results and discussion: Ten UK dental schools contributed to the study and three main themes were identified: student education, environment, and procedures and equipment. The most common approach to student education was the reduction of student numbers in clinical areas; however, this increased supervisory demands. While there was widespread acknowledgement of the need for enhanced ventilation, implementing the necessary modifications was frequently constrained by building configurations and financial implications. Numerous procedural adjustments were implemented, accompanied by widespread adoption of enhanced personal protective equipment. Fallow periods were common, although differing durations underscored the need for data-driven guidance. Many schools transitioned towards electric speed-controlled handpieces, but the need to reflect real-world scenarios often led to a reversion to air turbines.

Conclusion: UK dental schools showed initiative, resilience, and ingenuity in safeguarding students from enduring irretrievable educational setbacks amidst the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Validating a data-driven strategy for addressing future threats would facilitate a unified response, minimising the educational repercussions and bolstering the resilience of dental training.

Background: Degree projects are part of most professional study programmes and correspond to professional and academic requirements. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate factors that influence the quality of student degree projects from a supervisor and student perspective.

Methods: Semi-structured interviews were performed with eight supervisors from the study programme in dentistry at Karolinska Institutet. The interviews were transcribed. The first part was summarised and described, and the second part was analysed thematically. Also, a questionnaire was completed by 45 students in their 7th and 9th semesters of the study programme. Student responses were summarised and described.

Results: The main findings indicate a convergence of expectations and perspectives between supervisors and students regarding the factors that influence the quality of the degree project. They emphasise the importance of realistic expectations, feasibility and adherence to academic standards for a high-quality outcome. Effective supervision involves the supervisor being readily available, responsive to student inquiries and supportive in time-management. Conversely, students are expected to demonstrate motivation, engagement and increasing autonomy. Additionally, both agree that the project should be engaging, relevant to the supervisor's expertise and the student's interests, contribute to personal and academic growth and ideally result in a publication.

Conclusions: Taken together, supervisors and students share grounds for the degree project work, which is an important condition for ensuring a qualitatively sound degree project. Sharing expectations and perspectives in the beginning and having a continuously open dialogue concerning this issue during the degree project work benefits a sustainable collaboration and ensures quality.

Introduction: This article explores the use of clinical vicarious learning dialogue videos as a learning resource for a written summative assessment.

Method: A prescribed list of 42 clinical vicarious learning dialogue videos was disseminated to students, and they were informed that these would form the scope of a prosthodontics question in their final year summative exam. The videos captured the learning dialogue between a teacher and student during diagnosis, problem-solving or clinical decision-making in relation to prosthodontic patient interactions. Exam questions were created from screen capture images from the videos based on and around the video content. After the exam, video analytics was captured, and students were invited for an interview using a question guide which was recorded and transcribed and a thematic analysis was performed using a deductive inductive approach.

Results: Fourteen students were interviewed, and from these three domains and 10 key themes were identified: learning: learning strategy, learning new skills and knowledge, learning clinical skills, application of learnt skills and engagement; assessment: exam scope and stress, clinical relevance, motivation, generalisable; and video as a learning medium: enjoyable, affordance. Students reported that using these videos facilitated and supported their exam preparations, stimulated learning new content as well as higher-order thinking skills. Students reported they had applied skills learnt from the videos and broadened their cognitive skills and practical experience. The format of the assessment was described as enjoyable and reduced stress. All students reported they watched 'all' the videos which appeared to be supported by the analytics.

Conclusion: Clinical vicarious learning dialogue videos were found to help learning, assessment literacy, clinical cognitive skills, stress and motivation for learning.

Objective: This study aimed to analyse the impact of sociodemographic factors on dental school candidates' decision to pursue dentistry as their career of choice.

Materials and methods: Candidates shortlisted by three dental schools were invited to participate in a self-administered questionnaire study, featuring a validated instrument containing sociodemographic questions and 16 motivational items grouped into four domains: economic, professional, vocational and personal background reasons. The variations in motivational item scores across sociodemographic factors were assessed using the Mann-Whitney U test (age, sex, ethnicity, having relatives in the dental profession and dentistry as the first choice) and Kruskal-Wallis test (dental school and family income).

Results: A total of 295 dental school candidates participated in the study (Universiti Teknologi MARA: 137; Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia: 99; MAHSA University: 59). Approximately 95% of participants identified dentistry as their primary career choice, with the vocational motivation of 'I like to help people' being the most prominent motivational factor. Dental school emerged as the critical factor significantly influencing three quarters of the motivational items. Sex, ethnicity and having relatives in the dental profession were the remaining factors significantly associated with variations in certain motivational items. Both dental school and ethnicity significantly affected four motivational domains (economic, professional, vocational and personal background).

Conclusion: This study provides an insightful overview of the sociodemographic factors that impact career decision-making among prospective dental students. The scores for most motivational items varied among shortlisted candidates in three dental schools. The findings hold implications for policy development in dentistry by universities and public policymakers.

Introduction: Compassionate care and empathy are fundamental components of health care which contribute to the social construction of physician-patient relationship to meet the expectations of the patients. The aim of this study was to evaluate clinical empathy among undergraduate dental students at a University in the Middle East.

Materials and methods: It was a cross-sectional study which used purposive sampling to recruit undergraduate dental students from five academic years. The Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy-Health Profession Students was used, a reliable 20-item tool with a total score ranging from 20 to 140. Data collection was done online using Google Forms. All data were analysed and visualised using RStudio (version 2023.06.2) incorporating R version 4.0.5. Descriptive statistics including confidence intervals were calculated for each item and for the combined data set. Analysis of variance was used to determine any significant variation between the results by demographic factors. Estimated marginal means were calculated from the ANOVA outcomes.

Results: Responses were received from 150 participants including 75 males and 75 females. The overall response rate was 90.36%. The overall mean total score was 96.01 (95% CI 93.73-98.30). Analysis of variance (ANOVA) identified significant variation by gender only with female participants achieving statistically significant higher overall scores than male participants (f = 6.502, p = 0.012).

Conclusion: The study evaluated empathy among dental undergraduate students. The total mean scores of the participants appeared to be comparable to those reported in the literature findings. Higher mean empathy scores were observed for female participants in the current study. These findings emphasise the need for targeted interventions to promote empathy among dental students to boost patient-centred care.