Educational effects using a robot patient simulation system for development of clinical attitude

Introduction: The aim of this study was to assess the effectiveness of improving the attitude of dental students toward the use of a full-body patient simulation system (SIMROID) compared to the traditional mannequin (CLINSIM) for dental clinical education.
Materials and methods: The participants were 10 male undergraduate dental students who had finished clinical training in the university hospital 1 year before this study started. They performed a crown preparation on an upper premolar tooth using SIMROID and CLINSIM as the practical clinical trials. The elapsed time for preparation was recorded. The taper of the abutment teeth was measured using a 3-dimensional shape-measuring device after this trial. In addition, a self-reported questionnaire was collected that included physical pain, treatment safety, and maintaining a clean area for each simulator. Qualitative data analysis of a free format report about SIMROID was performed using text-mining analysis. This trial was performed twice at 1-month intervals.
Results: The students considered physical pain, treatment safety, and a clean area for SIMROID significantly better than that for CLINSIM (P < 0.01). The elapsed time of preparation in the second practical clinical trial was significantly lower than in the first for SIMROID and CLINSIM (P < 0.01). However, there were no significant differences between the abutment tapers for both systems. For the text-mining analysis, most of the students wrote that SIMROID was similar to real patients.
Conclusion: The use of SIMROID was proven to be effective in improving the attitude of students toward patients, thereby giving importance to considerations for actual patients during dental treatment.

This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Abe S, Noguchi N, Matsuka Y, et al. Educational effects using a robot patient simulation system for development of clinical attitude. Eur J Dent Educ. 2018;22:e327–e336. https://doi.org/10.1111/eje.12298, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/eje.12298. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions.