A randomised controlled trial of the effect of outreach placement on treatment planning by dental students.

UNLABELLED

Undergraduate dental students' curricula are being supplemented with primary care placements.

OBJECTIVE

To compare the effect of outreach placement and traditional hospital-based training alone on students' treatment planning ability.

DESIGN

Randomised controlled trial.Setting Four existing primary care placements in England during 2004.

SUBJECTS AND METHODS

At follow-up the fourth-year students took a history from a standard 'patient' then recorded a treatment plan. Interview skill was scored. The history and plan were assessed by clinicians blind to the intervention.

INTERVENTION

Five-week block outreach placements for 25 of 49 students.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES

Interviewing skill, quality of dental and social histories, the appropriateness of planned treatments and the consideration of wider issues.

RESULTS

The two groups were similar in the scores for interviewing and taking a dental history. The outreach group scored higher for capturing a social history (outreach mean 4.4, SD = 2.1, n = 22 and hospital 2.8, SD = 1.9, n = 23; p = 0.01) and for developing an appropriate treatment plan (5.6 [SD = 2.1] and 3.9 [SD = 2.3]; p = 0.01). There were no differences in scores relating to the wider issues.

CONCLUSION

Dental outreach training was significantly more effective than traditional training alone in improving students' ability to capture relevant points of social history from a patient and to consider them when planning treatment.