Evaluating the Impact of Playing Video Games on Baseline Technical Aptitude in Pre-Clinical Dental Students

Research on video games is growing, with literature indicating a link between psychomotor and cognitive faculties and playing video games. Their benefits have been observed in various fields, including medical training; however, no study has evaluated the beneficial effects on the technical skills of dental students. The main objective of our study was to determine whether students without any dental practice experience who play action video games perform better than those who do not play video games in three psychomotor skills: (1) Ability to represent a volume in three dimensions, (2) manual precision and dexterity, and (3) speed of execution of a technical dental gesture.

The study was observational, monocentric, blind, controlled, and cross-sectional. Video game players and non-video game players were identified through a preliminary questionnaire. The psychomotor skills were assessed respectively by (1) Vandenberg & Kusel Mental Rotation test, (2) modified Precision Manual Dexterity test (mPMD test), and (3) pulpotomy test.

Eighty-five students were included, 22 were video game players, and 63 were non-players. The video game players showed a better ability to represent a volume in three dimensions (p = 0 .031) than the non-players. For the mPMD test (p = 0.83) and pulpotomy test (p = 0.077), there was a tendency for the video game players to perform better than the non-video game players but these differences did not reach statistical significance.

The study seems to demonstrate a beneficial impact of playing video games on pre-clinical dental students in their ability to represent a volume in three dimensions.