[Effect of clinical experience on the shade matching accuracy].

PURPOSE

To evaluate the effect of clinical experience on the shade matching accuracy.

METHODS

Thirty-seven dental students (group A) who had 1 to 2 years of clinical experience and 57 dental students (group B) who didn't have clinical experience took part in this experiment. Participants were divided into two groups (TTB group and TT group) and used the Toothguide Training (TT) and Toothguide Training Box (TTB) respectively. All participants received training session once a week for 3 weeks. Before training and each time after finished training all participants were asked to identify ten unlabeled tabs which had been randomly chosen from Vita 3D-master shadeguide. SPSS 16.0 software package was used for Wilcoxon signed rank test.

RESULTS

Before training, the accuracy rate of group A and group B was (65.67±20.4)% and (70.17±17.57)% respectively. After training, the accuracy rate of group A and group B was (78.91±22.82)% and (80.17±17.77)% respectively. No significant difference was found between group A and B, but significant difference was found between before and after training.

CONCLUSIONS

This study shows clinical experience is not found to be a significant factor to the teeth shade matching. The training can improve the accuracy of shade matching.