Immersive Haptic Simulation for Psychomotor Skill Acquisition in Preclinical Prosthetic Dentistry: A Randomized Study

Area of Science:

• Dental Education
• Virtual Reality in Medicine
• Prosthodontics Simulation

Background:

• Dental education increasingly utilizes simulation technologies.
• Virtual reality (VR) and haptic feedback offer immersive training environments.
• Evaluating novel simulation methods is crucial for improving dental student skills.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the impact of the VirTeaSy Dental simulator with VR on student performance in fixed prosthodontics.
• To compare outcomes between conventional simulation and a combined immersive haptic and conventional approach.

Main Methods:

• 85 novice dental students were divided into control and test groups.
• The test group used immersive haptic simulation combined with conventional exercises.
• Student performance in prosthetic preparations was evaluated using prepCheck 3.0 software.

Main Results:

• Phase one showed no statistically significant difference in prosthetic preparation scores between groups (p > 0.05).
• Phase two subgroup analyses also revealed no significant differences in performance.
• No statistically significant improvements were observed with the addition of immersive haptic simulation.

Conclusions:

• Combining immersive haptic VR simulation with conventional methods does not significantly enhance student performance in fixed prosthodontics.
• Conventional simulation alone appears as effective as combined approaches for novice dental students.
• Further research may explore different VR integration strategies or advanced skill levels.