Evaluation of an individual anamnesis tool for teaching risk-oriented prevention – a pilot study in undergraduate dental students

Abstract

Background A comprehensive medical history is needed to establish and ensure a high standard in dental care; however, it is challenging to draw clinical consequences on the variety of potential diseases and medications, especially for dental students. Aim of this observational study was to investigate, whether undergraduate dental students using an analog anamnesis tool for risk classification would be more confident and have more knowledge in risk classification than other students in the same year of study. Methods A cohort of 48 fifth year dental students was included and allocated into two groups based on their curriculum-related division (group A: n = 25, group B: n = 23). Group A received a teaching event and provision of an analog anamnesis tool for risk classification; group B received neither a teaching event nor the anamnesis tool. At baseline and after two weeks (follow-up), questionnaires regarding self-perceived confidence with risk classification, questions on different disease, medications and lifestyle factors and a task with 15 medical histories of prepared patient cases were applied. The data was statistically analyzed using Mann–Whitney or Wilcoxon test. Results In group comparison of the differences between baseline and follow-up regarding self-perceived confidence, significantly higher improvement was noted in group A compared to group B for all questions (p < 0.05). With regard to knowledge, the group comparison revealed that the differences in all of the four tasks were significantly higher in group A compared to group B (pi ≤ 0.01). Thereby, the different tasks in group A differed between baseline and follow-up as follows: Risk of complications: 49.04 ± 13.59 vs. 67.96 ± 17.22, p < 0.01, Risk of oral diseases: 48.77 ± 13.57 vs. 63.44 ± 16.78, p = 0.01, Indication of antibiotic prophylaxis: 75.70 ± 13.45 vs. 87.97 ± 10.37, p < 0.01 and the Medical history task on 15 patient cases: 58.45 ± 4.74 vs. 71.47 ± 9.54, p < 0.01. Conclusion The applied analog anamnesis tool supported an increase in students´ confidence with issues related to at-risk patients alongside with their knowledge in risk classification. The applied anamnesis tool can be recommended for improving teaching of risk management for undergraduate dental students.

Evaluation of a concept to classify anamnesis-related risk of complications and oral diseases in patients attending the clinical course in dental education

“…If patients had provided their informed consent, medical history forms of the patients were pseudonymized and copied for data extraction. The resulting data from medical history forms were transferred into a risk classification matrix, which is described below [ 13 ].…”

“…Previous studies of this working group described and introduced a risk classification system for medical history information and a respective anamnesis tool [ 3 , 12 , 13 ]. The risk classification is based on a categorization of factors, originating from general diseases, medication and lifestyle into a low, moderate or high risk of complications and/or oral diseases.…”

“…For example, a heart valve replacement leads to a high risk of complications (infection risk, requiring antibiotic prophylaxis) and a low risk of oral diseases (no association between valve replacement and oral diseases). This has been applied for all medical history questions as described previously [ 13 ]. For analysis, medication groups were built according to their main risk (supplementary Table 2 ).…”

“…This concept was integrated into a teaching concept, which was found to improve the knowledge and to increase the perceived confidence with at-risk patients for dental students [ 12 ]. A subsequently developed anamnesis-tool was established and evaluated as well, confirming a benefit of such a medical history teaching in dental education [ 13 ]. Although a benefit of risk classification and related medical history tools for dental education appears evident, the practical transfer to dental patients attending the student course remain unclear.…”

“…Accordingly, this current study applied the upper mentioned risk classification system by using a medical history tool [ 13 ] to a cohort of patients attending the student course for preventive measures. The aim of this research was to evaluate the distribution of low, moderate and high risk of complications as well as risk of oral diseases in a mixed group of patients in dental education and to reveal potential associations with age and gender of the patients.…”