Dexterity Testing in Dental Students

Abstract

The objective of this study was to adapt a manual dexterity test to a pre-clinical training setting and to determine its reliability. Ninety-two students in the final year of their undergraduate program in dentistry at the School of Dentistry of São Paulo State University (UNESP), Araraquara, were evaluated. After the development of the Dental Manual Dexterity Assessment (DMDA), its reliability was evaluated in a reproducibility study. Two examiners evaluated twenty subjects’ test cubes in duplicate under the naked eye and using an X-ray view box and determined the subjects’ final scores on the DMDA. The examiners waited a week between their two scoring sessions, which were referred to as the first assessment and the second assessment. The intra- and inter-examiner reproducibility study was performed using an intra class correlation coefficient (ρ). A descriptive statistical analysis was performed, and the prevalence of the level of manual dexterity and the time required to complete the test were estimated using a point estimation and a 95% confidence interval. Both intra-examiner reproducibility (ρ1=0.892; ρ2=0.938) and inter-examiner reproducibility (ρ1st=0.914; ρ2nd=0.813) were classified as “good” or higher. A high prevalence of manual dexterity levels classified as “high” was observed among the subjects evaluated. The adaptation resulted in a valid and reliable instrument for measuring manual dexterity among dental students. The method is simple and may be implemented early on in undergraduate programs in dentistry.