A survey on utilization and barriers of digital removable prostheses in the US dental education

• Published in: Journal of dental education Vol. 87; no. 12; pp. 1746 - 1753
• Main Authors: Elkassaby, Heba, Touloumi, Foteini, Clark, Wendy Auclair, Jiang, Shuying, Mahrous, Ahmed, Mainelli, Julia, Moghadam, Marjan, Zemnick, Candice, Sadid‐Zadeh, Ramtin
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States 01-12-2023
• Subjects: computer‐aided; curriculum; dental school; digital dentures; digital technology; implementation; postdoctoral; predoctoral; removable; survey; computer-aided; dental school; digital dentures; removable; implementation; survey; curriculum; postdoctoral; digital technology; predoctoral
• ISSN: 0022-0337; 1930-7837; 1930-7837
• DOI: 10.1002/jdd.13372

Purpose
Gaining knowledge on the extent of digital technology implementation in dental education and the barriers to it will help inform future directions to promote the use of such technology and will enhance dental education. This study aimed to investigate the utilization of digitally fabricated removable prostheses and the potential obstacles to implementing such technology in US dental schools.
Methods
A survey was developed and distributed to the restorative dentistry department chairs and postdoctoral prosthodontic program directors. The survey delivery protocol included follow‐up emails 1 week, 3 weeks, and 4 weeks after the initial email. The collected data were analyzed descriptively.
Results
The response rate was 85% and 45% for predoctoral and postdoctoral prosthodontic programs, respectively. The results showed that 88.06% of the predoctoral programs and 95.65% of the postdoctoral prosthodontic programs implement digital complete dentures in the curriculum; however, the digital removable partial dentures implementation rate was recorded at 70.77% in predoctoral programs and 61.9% in postdoctoral prosthodontic programs.
Conclusions
Dental schools are challenged by cost, design software limitations, IT and laboratory support, and faculty training. Multifaceted support is instrumental in further implementing digital removable prosthodontics into dental education.