Soft skills in dental student curricula: an evidence and gap map

Soft skills are recognised as essential for dental practitioners, but their integration into dental education is inconsistent. The aim of this evidence and gap map was to explore the use of soft skills teaching initiatives in undergraduate dental education and to clarify the key domains in this research field.

An extensive search of studies from 2014 to 2024 on the PubMed database was carried out by four researchers. Inclusion criteria covered articles, including both advocacy or position papers, and studies reporting on implemented and evaluated educational interventions in soft skills in undergraduate dental education. The search is aligned with Joanna Briggs Institute and PRISMA-ScR guidelines and based on predefined coding frameworks from the literature.

From the 1,449 records initially identified, 317 were included after rigorous examination. There were generally more educational programme description or evaluation papers compared to advocacy articles. More than two-thirds of the included articles were published in pedagogy-focused journals. The papers were classified into four domains (i.e. dentist-patient relationship, cooperation, life balance and clinical reasoning), with most studies falling into the dentist-patient relationship and cooperation domains. Various graphic formats present the results (i.e. a visual map, radar charts, and a geographical map), which provides a comprehensive and accessible representation, thus aiding in the exploration of the identified themes, connections, and key domains in this research field.

This evidence and gap map represents an attempt to capture a picture of existing educational practises relating to soft skills in dentistry teaching and, thus, raise broader questions regarding how soft skills should contribute to redefining the role of dentistry for dentists, patients and society. However, integrating soft skills comes with various challenges, such as the training of educators, the standardisation of content and evaluations, and the development of research evaluating the impacts of soft skills teaching on dentists and patients. Ultimately, it would be beneficial to engage patients in defining the various curriculum items and prioritising the most relevant ones concerning soft skills. This collaborative approach would ensure that the educational content aligns with the needs of patients and helps address larger public health challenges.