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An educational intervention for teaching bad news communication in dentistry: A pilot study in Italy
Beatriz Nascimento Figueiredo Lebre Martins1, Ludovica Nucci2, Cristina Saldivia-Siracusa1
1Department of Oral Diagnosis, Piracicaba Dental School, University of Campinas (FOP-UNICAMP), Piracicaba, Brazil.
Objectives:
This pilot single-center, non-randomized, one-group pre-post study evaluated the effect of a structured educational intervention on undergraduate and graduate dental students' self-perceived confidence in communicating bad news in dentistry.
Methods:
The study was conducted at the Università degli Studi della Campania Luigi Vanvitelli, Naples, Italy. 4th-6th year undergraduate and graduate students attended an in-person SPIKES-based training including pre- and post-training confidence questionnaires, an introductory lecture, two simulation videos, and group discussions. All analyses were two-sided at an α level of 0.05. Pre- and post-training responses were compared using the Wilcoxon signed-rank test for paired ordinal data.
Results:
A total of 100 undergraduate and 26 graduate students attended. The training program significantly increased students' confidence in communicating bad news: undergraduate students' levels of confidence increased statistically in 14 of the 16 scenarios (p<0.05), while for graduate students the item on treatment failure showed a statistically significant change from pre- to post-intervention (p=0.025).
Conclusion:
The present training model increased students' self-confidence in delivering bad news in several topics in dentistry.
Clinical Relevance:
The study highlights communicating bad news as a key educational need and supports the incorporation of this topic into dental curricula.
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