Dental Students Apply Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) to Clinical Scenarios: Developing, Enhancing, and Assessing Skills
Academic Year:
2014 - 2015 (June 1, 2014 through May 31, 2015)
Funding Requested:
$4,000.00
Project Dates:
-
Overview of the Project:
Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) is the conscientious, explicit, and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients. Although EBP is required within dental education by the Commission on Dental Accreditation (CODA), currently, the exposure of dental students to EBP is limited. This skill is incorporated in a didactic course in the 1st dental year, before students start treating patients. When they start providing cares they are rarely asked to apply EBP skills and their learning is rarely systematically assessed. Therefore, this proposal is to apply two interventions to students who are currently providing care in the clinics: (1) a classroom based learning and (2) an active group learning. Three methods will be used to assess learning: (1) a questionnaire (2) a written exam and (3) a score sheet for group practice. Their learning efficiency will be investigated by comparing the pre- and post-intervention results of the three methods. This teaching module may be potentially applied to other schools, e.g. Schools of Medicine, Pharmacy, Nursing, etc. for students to facilitate the use EBP and for educators to assess EBP-learning, and will solidify the students' use of these skills in their future clinical practices.