Abstract
Objective: the present study aimed to investigate whether dental wear depth perception has influence on the final quality of aesthetic direct restorations in the pre-clinical setting. Material and Methods: eighty one participants were assigned to one of three groups (n=27): G1, beginning dentistry students; G2, intermediate dentistry students; and G3, advanced dentistry students. All groups were required to prepare a tooth for facet of 1mm in depth. Subsequently, teeth were restored with opaque or translucent composite resin. Results: dental wear was different among the groups (p<0.05). G1 obtained a median of 1mm, G2 obtained a median of 0.5mm, while G3 obtained a median of 0.8mm. G3 presented more consistent accuracy in dental wear. Color values did not vary according to the dental wear depth or to the type of resin composite used in the restoration (p> 0.05). Conclusion: technical training and clinical experience contribute to the better dental wear depth perception of undergraduate dental students. No direct correlation between the dental wear depth perception and the quality of shade matching of restored artificial teeth could be performed in the pre-clinical environment. Keywords: Dental education; Motor skills; Color; Dental Aesthetics
Highlights
The acquisition of psychomotor skills by undergraduate students is an important step in the dental education
In order to evaluate dental manikins as suitable models of the clinical settings, this study aimed to investigate whether dental wear depth perception of students in different levels of the dental course has influence on the final color of aesthetic direct restorations performed on artificial teeth
Eighty-one participants were assigned to one of three groups according to the progressive levels of the dental course (n = 27 per group): group 1 (G1), consisting of students from the 6th semester who were finishing the pre-clinical discipline of indirect operative dentistry (ODP); group 2 (G2), consisting of students from the 7th semester who were finishing the clinical discipline of indirect operative dentistry (ODC); and group 3 (G3), consisting of students from the eighth semester who had passed both ODP and ODC
Summary
The acquisition of psychomotor skills by undergraduate students is an important step in the dental education. The technical ability to properly execute tooth preparation is essential to attend patient needs – either functional or aesthetic – and might be developed with practice [1,2,3,4,5]. The acquisition of such competence is desirable in an early context during the undergraduate program, prior to performing procedures that may be invasive and/or irreversible in patients [6]. In the pre-clinical disciplines, operative procedures are taught on bench-top typodontsmounted manikins adapted to phantom heads. Manikins lack details that may impair the learning of mechanical and aesthetic concepts in operative dentistry
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