Teaching and assessing behavioural techniques of applied relaxation for reduction of dental fear using a controlled chairside simulation model

This paper describes a novel method of teaching and assessing relaxation techniques using a controlled chairside simulation model. 50 pre-clinical dental undergraduates provided an evaluation of the teaching model as part of their basic clinical skills teaching. Students were required to demonstrate applied relaxation techniques according to 2 pre-selected clinical vignettes. Inter-observer reliability of assessing student competence was calculated on a varied sample (n=9) using 2 independent observers and found to be adequate. The majority of the students viewed the teaching and assessment method as interesting and clinically relevant. However, a few students reported that the method was less advantageous than using a real patient. It is concluded that using vignettes as part of clinical training accompanied by video-based feedback provides a resourceful learning tool for pre-clinical teaching in the absence of patient contact.