An evaluation of student and clinician perception of digital and conventional implant impressions

Presented at the 94th Annual Meeting of the Academy of Prosthodontics, May 2012.
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Statement of problem

The accuracy and efficiency of digital implant impressions should match conventional impressions. Comparisons should be made with clinically relevant data.

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the difficulty level and operator's perception between dental students and experienced clinicians when making digital and conventional implant impressions.

Material and methods

Thirty experienced dental professionals and 30 second-year dental students made conventional and digital impressions of a single implant model. A visual analog scale (VAS) and multiple-choice questionnaires were used to assess the participant's perception of difficulty, preference, and effectiveness. Wilcoxon signed-rank test within the groups and Wilcoxon rank-sum test between the groups were used for statistical analysis (α=.05).

Results

On a 0 to 100 VAS, the student group scored a mean difficulty level of 43.1 (±18.5) for the conventional impression technique and 30.6 (±17.6) for the digital impression technique (P=.006). The clinician group scored a mean (standard deviation) difficulty level of 30.9 (±19.6) for conventional impressions and 36.5 (±20.6) for digital impressions (P=.280). Comparison between groups showed a mean difficulty level with the conventional impression technique significantly higher in the student group (P=.030). The digital impression was not significantly different between the groups (P=.228). Sixty percent of the students preferred the digital impression and 7% the conventional impression; 33% expressed no preference. In the clinician group, 33% preferred the digital impression and 37% the conventional impression; 30% had no preference. Seventy-seven percent of the student group felt most effective with digital impressions, 10% with conventional impressions, and 13% with either technique, whereas 40% of the clinician group chose the digital impression as the most effective technique, 53% the conventional impression, and 7% either technique.

Conclusions

The conventional impression was more difficult to perform for the student group than the clinician group; however, the difficulty level of the digital impression was the same in both groups. It was also determined that the student group preferred the digital impression as the most efficient impression technique, and the clinician group had an even distribution in the choice of preferred and efficient impression techniques.

Section snippets

Material and Methods

This study was approved by the Harvard Medical School Committee on Human Studies (CHS No. M20078-101). The participants of the study consisted of 30 second-year dental students at the Harvard School of Dental Medicine (HSDM) who had no experience with either conventional or digital implant impression making and 30 dental professionals who had more than 5 years of clinical experience with conventional impressions and minimal experience with digital impressions. The methods of making the

Results

Participants' responses regarding their perceptions on the level of difficulty with conventional and digital impression techniques are presented in Table I. On a 0-to-100 VAS, the student group scored a mean (standard deviation) difficulty level of 43.1 (±18.5) for conventional impression technique and 30.6 (±17.6) for the digital impression technique (P=.006).5 The clinician group presented a mean difficulty level of 30.9 (±19.6) for the conventional impression technique and 36.5 (±20.6) for

Discussion

The data support rejecting the null hypothesis that there is no difference in difficulty level between students and experienced clinicians when performing a conventional implant impression. However, the results support not rejecting the null hypothesis in that there is no difference in difficulty level between the groups that use digital implant impressions.

Even digital impressions have also been successfully integrated into dental laboratory and practice.11 The initial concern of the newly

Conclusions

Within the limitations of this in vitro study, the following conclusions were made.

  • 1.

    The difficulty level of digital impressions was same between the student and the clinician groups.

  • 2.

    Conventional impression was more difficult for the student group to perform than clinician group.

  • 3.

    The student group favored the digital impression technique, whereas the clinician group did not show preference over either impression technique.

  • 4.

    The clinician group felt more proficient with the conventional impression

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