Prediction of dental students’ pre-clinical crown preparation performances by a virtual reality haptic-based dental simulator

Background/purpose: Manual dexterity training is essential for dental students. The implementation of virtual reality haptic-based dental simulator Simodont (Nissin Inc., Nieuw-Vennep, Netherlands) can provide the real-time feedback in pre-clinical learning. The aim of this study was hypothesized that Simodont may act as a valuable assessment tool in predicting the performance of pre-clinical crown preparation. Materials and methods: This retrospective cohort study was to analyze total 84 dental students' performance among manual dexterity exercises on Simodont, crown preparation on Simodont, and crown preparation test on phantom head. Spearman's correlation coefficient (r) was used to examine the relationships of performances among three groups. Subgroup analysis with dichotomous performance (low/high) and sex difference were further analyzed by chi-square test. Results: Positive correlation was found between crown preparation test in phantom head and manual dexterity exercises on Simodont (r = 0.390, P < 0.001) and crown preparation on Simodont (r = 0.326, P < 0.01), respectively. Odds ratio analysis showed that students who scored highly with manual dexterity exercises on Simodont were 5.6 times more likely to be high performance in conventional crown preparation test in phantom heads (P < 0.001). Moreover, male students were shown to have stronger correlation between the performances on Simodont and phantom head test (P < 0.001). However, there were no significant correlations among three different test groups were found in female students. Conclusion: Taken together, our data revealed the potential of Simodont in the prediction of dental students’ subsequent crown preparation test in conventional phantom head.