Virtual patient instruction for dental students: can it improve dental care access for persons with special needs?

Sanders, Carla L.; Kleinert, Harold L.; Boyd, Sara E.; Herren, Chris; Theiss, Lynn B.; Mink, John R.

doi:10.1111/j.1754-4505.2008.00038.x

Cited by 29 publications

(44 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…Rather than simply relying on didactic instruction, experiential learning with reflective components is recommended for training dental students about care of people with intellectual disabilities (Delucia & Davis 2009). Innovative approaches using computer-based training were reportedly effective (Ruiz et al 2006, Kleinert et al 2007) and can be easier to deliver; for example an interactive module featuring a deaf-blind virtual patient (Sanders et al 2008).…”

Section: Different Approachesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Educating Health Professionals about Disability: A Review of Interventions

Shakespeare

Kleine

2013

Health and Social Care Education

102

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Health professionals need to understand the human rights and health needs of disabled people. This review of evidence on interventions demonstrates that a range of often innovative approaches have been trialled. Lectures by faculty are less effective in changing attitudes than contact with disabled people themselves. Existing examples of good practice need to be scaled up, and better and more long-term evaluations of impact are required.

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Section: Different Approachesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Educating Health Professionals about Disability: A Review of Interventions

Shakespeare

Kleine

2013

Health and Social Care Education

102

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“…Studies evaluating the effectiveness of education programmes in special needs dentistry, using a pre‐post design, are rather scarce. Sanders et al found that after completion of an interactive, virtual‐patient module on compact disc, presenting an individual with a developmental disability, students' perceived comfort and knowledge base, has significantly improved. Salama et al reported that viewing an educational presentation in the form of a DVD was effective in informing dental students and providing them with instructive basic information on patients with special healthcare needs.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attitudes of dental students towards patients with special healthcare needs: Can they be improved?

Holzinger

Lettner

Franz

2020

Eur J Dental Education

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Introduction:Lack of knowledge and skills as well as negative attitudes towards patients with special healthcare needs may adversely affect the services available to this group. In 2010, a line on the treatment of patients with special healthcare needs has been implemented in the dental curriculum at the Medical University of Vienna, including five seminars and a practical course. In this study, we examine to what extent the programme helps improve attitudes towards persons with special healthcare needs and positively impacts the readiness to engage in treating this clientele. Materials and Methods:In 2017 and 2018, all students who were in their fourth study year participated in the study. Students' attitudes were assessed before the first seminar, after the last seminar and after the practical course. At all three time points, the same fully structured questionnaire was used, including established instruments for the assessment of emotional reactions and the desire for social distance plus ad hoc questions for assessing students' future intention to treat patients with special healthcare needs. The data were analysed by means of linear fixed models. Results:At the end of the line devoted to patients with special healthcare needs, students tended less to express negative emotions and showed more positive emotional reactions than before the start of the programme. However, students' social acceptance of such patients and their readiness to engage in treating them did not change significantly.Discussion: While our programme was able to improve students' emotional reactions to people with special healthcare needs, it proved unable to reduce the desire for social distance and to lower the barrier when it comes to treatment. It is planned to further develop our programme which, hopefully, will then succeed in increasing students' readiness to treat this clientele. Conclusion:Improving dental students' emotional reactions to patients with special healthcare needs does not necessarily translate into greater readiness to treat this clientele. K E Y W O R D Sattitudes, dental students, educational programme, evaluation, patients with special health care needs

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“…Janda et al [34] found that the use of VPs improved the capability of dental students to take a health history. Another study [35] investigated the use of VPs in dental care for persons with special needs and concluded that dental students demonstrated improved communication skills and became more effective when caring for such patients.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Design and Evaluation of a Simulation for Pediatric Dentistry in Virtual Worlds

Papadopoulos¹,

Pentzou²,

Louloudiadis³

et al. 2013

J Med Internet Res

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BackgroundThree-dimensional virtual worlds are becoming very popular among educators in the medical field. Virtual clinics and patients are already used for case study and role play in both undergraduate and continuing education levels. Dental education can also take advantage of the virtual world’s pedagogical features in order to give students the opportunity to interact with virtual patients (VPs) and practice in treatment planning.ObjectiveThe objective of this study was to design and evaluate a virtual patient as a supplemental teaching tool for pediatric dentistry.MethodsA child VP, called Erietta, was created by utilizing the programming and building tools that online virtual worlds offer. The case is about an eight-year old girl visiting the dentist with her mother for the first time. Communication techniques such as Tell-Show-Do and parents’ interference management were the basic elements of the educational scenario on which the VP was based. An evaluation of the simulation was made by 103 dental students in their fourth year of study. Two groups were formed: an experimental group which was exposed to the simulation (n=52) and a control group which did not receive the simulation (n=51). At the end, both groups were asked to complete a knowledge questionnaire and the results were compared.ResultsA statistically significant difference between the two groups was found by applying a t test for independent samples (P<.001), showing a positive learning effect from the VP. The majority of the participants evaluated the aspects of the simulation very positively while 69% (36/52) of the simulation group expressed their preference for using this module as an additional teaching tool.ConclusionsThis study demonstrated that a pediatric dentistry VP built in a virtual world offers significant learning potential when used as a supplement to the traditional teaching techniques.

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Virtual patient instruction for dental students: can it improve dental care access for persons with special needs?

Cited by 29 publications

References 16 publications

Educating Health Professionals about Disability: A Review of Interventions

Educating Health Professionals about Disability: A Review of Interventions

Attitudes of dental students towards patients with special healthcare needs: Can they be improved?

Design and Evaluation of a Simulation for Pediatric Dentistry in Virtual Worlds

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