JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Oral diseases negatively impact patients' quality of life, increasing the demand for skilled dentists. Dental students typically train using mannequins, artificial teeth, and real patients, but limited understanding of treatments may affect their competency. Immersive Reality (IR) technology offers an interactive and safe learning environment, enhancing skill acquisition.

Objective:

This proposed study aims to evaluates the effectiveness of IR-based training compared to conventional methods in improving dental students' skills, knowledge, and satisfaction in performing dental extractions.

Methods:

This study will be performed in three centers (Hasanuddin University, Padjajaran University and Universitas Sumatera Utara) and will recruit third-year dental students. Participants will be divided into two groups: ii) The intervention group, which will perform IR-based training of open and closed dental extraction methods, and ii) the control group, which will be observed and tutored by an oral and maxillofacial surgeon on open and closed dental extraction methods (conventional training). After the training session, both groups will be surveyed regarding their satisfaction with the training and their understanding of the procedure. The intervention group will then fill in an IR neuroscience questionnaire to assess the students’ experience, knowledge improvement and cybersickness. The control group will fill in an interactive software education questionnaire to assess training duration and qualitative outcomes. Outcomes will then be statistically analysed using the Mann-Whitney U test.

Results:

IR-based training provides as new learning method that can have a big impact in dental education. The feel of presence and deep immersion of dental students in a virtual environment can affect their learning motivation, and increasing knowledge transfer and retention. This phenomenon makes the learning process easier and more attractive to students. IR-based training could serve as an alternative to or complement conventional learning methods.

Conclusions:

The proposed pilot study is the first step towards evaluating the suitability and feasibility of IR-based training for dental extraction, with the aim of improving dental students’ skills and knowledge. Clinical Trial: The trial has been registered in the Indonesian Clinical Research Registry (INA-CRR) with register number INA-QES4CC5, on November 18, 2024.