Does the level of realism of clinical simulators have an influence on empathy in Dentistry students?

Abstract

Introduction: Learning with phantoms in simulated dental offices allows students to develop not only skills but also empathy by recognizing the simulator as a real patient. This study investigates the level of empathy developed by 4th-year pediatric Dentistry students in a simulated scenario with two pediatric phantoms and analyzes whether the phantoms' degree of realism influences the established empathy. Methods: A scenario was presented in a simulated dental office using two hand-made simulators: one involving a humanized mask-ELLA junior- and the other an Erler Zimmer phantom mask without the recreation of facial features. Two students performed the roles of dentist and assistant, and a professional actress was cast in the role of the mother. After the simulation, the Spanish-validated CARE questionnaire was distributed among 225 4th-year pediatric dental students, adding 4 questions on the level of perceived realism (obtaining 100% answers for empathy and 97.77% for realism). A statistical analysis was then carried out. Results: The level of empathy for 9 out of 10 questions was “good”. The dentist's positivity was the highest-rated empathy indicator whilst the interest in the patient-phantom remained the lowest. The phantom without humanization obtained a significantly better empathy mean value (36.86 ± 43/31.19 ± 9.72), and no correlation was observed between the generated degree of realism and the empathy level obtained by students. Conclusion: The level of empathy obtained by 4th-year dental students in the simulated scenario was good, not finding that the level of empathy improved when using a more realistic-looking phantom.