Author:
Sánchez Jorge María Isabel,Ocaña Rosa Acevedo,Valle Rodríguez Carolina,Peyró Fernández-Montes Barbara,Rico-Romano Cristina,Bazal-Bonelli Santiago,Sánchez-Labrador Luis,Cortés-Bretón Brinkmann Jorge
Abstract
Abstract
Background
Establishing the level of surgical difficulty pre-operatively is an essential step in ensuring correct treatment planning. This study set out to determine whether the knowledge and experience acquired by dentists who had received different levels of training influenced, firstly, the perceived levels of difficulty of a variety of cases of mandibular third molar (MTM) extraction and, secondly, the perceived difficulty deriving from a series of factors (patient-related factors, anatomical and radiographic factors, operative factors).
Methods
This cross-sectional, descriptive, observational study took the form of a survey. Using a visual analog scale (VAS), participants evaluated both the perceived difficulty of 30 cases of MTM extraction described by means of digital panoramic radiographs and the perceived difficulty deriving from a series of factors conditioning MTM extraction. The results underwent statistical analysis with SPSS Statistics 28.0 software. Non-parametric tests (Mann Whitney test for independent samples and the Kruskal–Wallis test) were applied.
Results
A total of 389 surveys were available for analysis. Dental practioners with no surgical training saw the intervention as presenting greater difficulty. Professionals with postgraduate training in oral surgery considered patient-related factors more important than operative factors, in contrast to dentists who had not received oral surgery training.
Conclusions
Dental training has a signficant influence on the perceived difficulty of MTM extraction and also affects opinions about which factors have greater or lesser influence on surgical difficulty.
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC