Dental Students Apply Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) to Clinical Scenarios: Developing, Enhancing, and Assessing Skills

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:
-
Applicant(s):
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.
Final Report Fields
Project Objectives:

The purpose of this study was to determine if a lecture-based module and group exercise improve the 3rd year dental students’ perceptions of EBP and ability to apply EBP to diagnose and treat gum recession.

Project Achievements:

Students appear to enter the class with a high perceived value of EBP and, thus, the interventions do not have a significant impact on student reaction to EBP or attitude about EBP. This suggests that the interventions can be modified to focus less on reaction to and attitude of EBP and more time focused on self-efficacy, knowledge, and skill.

Continuation:
Yes, we will continue to provide EBD training to D3 students in the D750 course.
Dissemination:
We have presented preliminary results in the Health Professions Education Day (HPEDay), American Dental Education Association (ADEA) annual meeting and ISL poster fair. We are planning to publish the results to a pearly reviewed dental journal.