Effectiveness of audio-visual aid of hemisection for dental trainee

Abstract

Hemisection is thought to be among the most common of dental treatments provided by a dental trainee. This study was aimed at investigating the effectiveness of an audio-visual aid for basic training of dental trainees in manual skills related to hemisection on a simulated model. Materials & Methods: A total of 16 dental trainees in year 2013 in the Department of Comprehensive Dentistry and Clinical Education, Nihon University School of Dentistry Dental Hospital, were divided into two groups: a non-experienced group, consisting of 8 trainees who had no previous history of clinical visit or the dental auxiliary of hemisection, and an experienced group, consisting of 8 trainees with a previous history of having performed clinical visit or the dental auxiliary of hemisection under the guidance of instructing dentists. All the subjects were examined by a pre-test before the basic training on a simulated model. After viewing hemisection in a periodontal basic training video under the supervision of created by The Japanese Society of Periodontology, basic training on hemisection on a simulated model was carried out for the dental trainees. The basic training on the simulated model was evaluated using an evaluation sheet, and a post-test was carried out after the basic training. Results: There were no statistically significant differences in either the pre-test scores or the post-test scores between the two groups. Both groups received a high score on the evaluation sheet, however, there was no statistically significant difference in the score between the both groups. The post-test score was statistically significantly higher (p<0.01) than the pre-test in both groups Conclusion: Our results suggest that use of an audio-visual aid is useful for training dental trainees in hemisection.