Educational effects using a robot patient simulation system for development of clinical attitude

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:sec><jats:title>Introduction</jats:title><jats:p>The aim of this study was to assess the effectiveness of improving the attitude of dental students towards the use of a full‐body patient simulation system (<jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">SIMROID</jats:styled-content>) compared to the traditional mannequin (<jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">CLINSIM</jats:styled-content>) for dental clinical education.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Materials and methods</jats:title><jats:p>The participants were 10 male undergraduate dental students who had finished clinical training in the university hospital 1 year before this study started. They performed a crown preparation on an upper pre‐molar tooth using <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">SIMROID</jats:styled-content> and <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">CLINSIM</jats:styled-content> as the practical clinical trials. The elapsed time for preparation was recorded. The taper of the abutment teeth was measured using a 3‐dimensional shape‐measuring device after this trial. In addition, a self‐reported questionnaire was collected that included physical pain, treatment safety and maintaining a clean area for each simulator. Qualitative data analysis of a free format report about <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">SIMROID</jats:styled-content> was performed using text mining analysis. This trial was performed twice at 1‐month intervals.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Results</jats:title><jats:p>The students considered physical pain, treatment safety and a clean area for <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">SIMROID</jats:styled-content> significantly better than that for <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">CLINSIM</jats:styled-content> (<jats:italic>P </jats:italic><<jats:italic> </jats:italic>.01). The elapsed time of preparation in the second practical clinical trial was significantly lower than in the first for <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">SIMROID</jats:styled-content> and <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">CLINSIM</jats:styled-content> (<jats:italic>P </jats:italic><<jats:italic> </jats:italic>.01). However, there were no significant differences between the abutment tapers for both systems. For the text mining analysis, most of the students wrote that <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">SIMROID</jats:styled-content> was similar to real patients.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Conclusion</jats:title><jats:p>The use of <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">SIMROID</jats:styled-content> was proven to be effective in improving the attitude of students towards patients, thereby giving importance to considerations for actual patients during dental treatment.</jats:p></jats:sec>