Enhancing Dental Students' Clinical Thinking of Dentition Defect Restoration by Integrating Virtual Simulation Technology Into Simulation‐Based Case Teaching

BACKGROUND: The gap between lecture and clinical practice makes students lack the exercise of clinical thinking and the ability of case analysis of removable partial denture restoration before clinic. Moreover, the denture design related training is also lacking in pre-clinical practice courses. Situational case teaching can help students understand the theoretical knowledge and optimise and develop their cognitive level, intelligence status and emotional attitude. The objective of this study was to explore the teaching effect of case-based situational simulation teaching method with a virtual patient in the clinical thinking training of dentition defect restoration. METHODS: The study was a self before-and-after control study, carried out with 112 dental undergraduates at Guanghua School of Stomatology, Sun Yat-sen University, including 67 females and 45 males, aged 17-20 years, with an average of (18.47 ± 1.15) years. The virtual patient was arranged to provide case information by role-playing. Students completed medical records before and after situational case teaching class. Teachers marked on six aspects (overall appearance and professionalism, the medical history, clinical examination, diagnosis, treatment plan and denture design) of each medical record. After class, we collected the questionnaire survey of students to get the subjective teaching evaluation. All statistical analyses were performed using SPSS 25.0. The comparison between the two groups of percentages was made using a Chi-square test. Statistical significance was set at p < 0.05. RESULTS: The results revealed a significant difference (p < 0.05) between the scores before and after situational case teaching class in medical records. The proportions of students who scored higher than 27 points in treatment plan and denture design (the total score is 30 points) were both 0.00% before class, while increased to 37.27% and 40.91% respectively after class. All students considered that they had improved in the skill of denture design, and the situational case teaching course was very necessary before internship. CONCLUSION: The situational case teaching based on virtual patients played a positive role in training students' clinical thinking about dentition defects. Students can avoid many errors in medical records and improve the thoughtfulness of removable partial denture treatment plans through the training of situational case teaching.