Analysis of Mastering Molar Restoration Manual Skills by Senior Dental Students

Abstract

Subject. The subject of this research is manual skills in molar restoration.
 Objective. The objective of this research is to analyze the process of mastering manual skills in restoration of phantom molar tooth models by senior dental students.
 Methodology. The study was carried out by the Department of Therapeutic Dentistry and Propedeutics of Dental Disease of Ural State Medical University of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation together with the Department of Control Systems Modeling, Ural Federal University. The study involved 54 four- and five-year dental students of Ural State Medical University (24 young male adults, 30 young adult women; the average age was 22.25 ± 1.75 years) in a procedure of dental filling of carious cavities in five “phantom” teeth – extracted molars (Black classification was Class I). This research applied the method developed by Prof. Larisa Lomiashvili together with co-authors for molar restoration using modular techniques. To analyze self-assessment of manual skills for molar restoration by senior students the questionnaire was completed. The questionnaire was made up of three blocks including 12 questions (parameters) evaluated using 1 to 10 rating scale survey, the rating being 10 for “fully satisfied”, and 1 for “completely dissatisfied”. The survey questions were divided into the following blocks: understanding of dental anatomical features, professional skills of students, cognitive motivational factors.
 Conclusions. The analysis of assessment scores and survey responses showed that mastering manual skills by senior students during a molar restoration procedure promotes their accuracy and ability to work with precision. The analysis of mastering manual skills for molar restoration by dental senior students using the survey responses showed rather high self-assessments (p ≤ 0.05).