To develop in postgraduate dental students the skills necessary to apply scientific research to their clinical practice in order to provide high quality, evidence-based care. It also aims to enable students to conceptualise and design research studies that address relevant problems in the specialty.
By the end of the module, students will be able to apply the principles of evidence-based dentistry to ask pertinent clinical questions and conduct efficient searches for relevant scientific information.They will also be able to critically appraise the results to make informed clinical decisions based on the best available evidence.
Assessment:Three OBE seminars worth 2%, 18% and 80% of the module.
By the end of the module, students will be able to identify and conceptualise a research problem in clinical epidemiology and set clear and specific objectives to address this problem. They will also be able to identify and select the data needed to answer the research question and design a study to collect them in a rigorous and systematic way. Finally, students will be able to develop a complete research protocol that reflects their understanding of clinical epidemiological research methods.
Assessment: A research protocol assessed in three parts: Materials and methods 60%, justification 20% and administrative aspects 20%.
Facilitator: Sergio Uribe, Phd, MSc, DDS
Evidence-based practice: This course explains what evidence-based dentistry is and teaches you how to design research, search for and select the best evidence, and critically analyse it. You will also study the different types of observational studies, controlled clinical trials, systematic reviews and evidence-based clinical guidelines. Finally, you will learn how to integrate the best evidence into clinical practice.
How to formulate questions with a clinical focus: This course will teach you how to formulate questions focused on the clinical practice of dentistry to obtain relevant information for decision making.
How to search for, select and retrieve the best evidence: Strategies for searching, selecting and retrieving the best available evidence are explored with the aim of optimising the quality and relevance of the information gathered.
Critical appraisal of evidence in dentistry: This course will teach you how to critically analyse the evidence found, identify the strengths and weaknesses of the studies and assess their validity and applicability.
Observational studies: The different types of observational studies, such as cohort studies and case-control studies, are studied and their advantages and limitations are analysed.
Controlled clinical trials: Aims, design, methodology and application in clinical practice are explained.
Systematic reviews: Systematic reviews, their methodology and their relevance to clinical practice are studied.
Evidence-based clinical guidelines: Evidence-based clinical guidelines, their development and application in clinical practice and their role in decision making in dentistry will be studied.
Applying the best evidence: integrating the best evidence into clinical practice: This seminar will teach you how to integrate the best evidence into decision-making in the clinical practice of dentistry, with the aim of improving the quality of patient care.
Basic Concepts: This unit explains the basic concepts of measurement, data, variables, error, validity, reliability, population, sample, inference, and methodological design that are essential to the development of research in dentistry.
Ethics in medical research: The ethical and legal principles of medical research and their relevance to the clinical practice of dentistry will be discussed.
Open science: the importance of pre-registration of research, open access, open data, data management plan, FAIR data.
Clinical epidemiological research designs: This unit will look at the different clinical epidemiological research designs and their application in dentistry.
Observational prevalence studies (F: Frequency): Observational prevalence studies and their importance in assessing the incidence of oral diseases will be studied.
Cohort studies (F: Risk 1): The design and analysis of cohort studies and their use in oral disease risk assessment will be explained.
Case-control studies (Q: Risk 2): Case-control studies and their use in oral disease risk assessment are discussed.
Diagnostic studies: levels of diagnostic evidence. Design of diagnostic accuracy studies. Design of diagnostic impact studies.
Controlled clinical trials (Q: Treatment): Controlled clinical trials and their role in the evaluation of treatments in dentistry are reviewed.
Systematic reviews (F: Systematic reviews): Systematic reviews and their relevance to clinical decision making in dentistry are reviewed.
Other designs: Brief reviews of other types of studies: economic analyses, qualitative studies, synthesis of evidence through clinical guidelines.
Data collection, tabulation and cleaning strategies: This unit covers strategies for data collection, tabulation and cleaning in dental research. Data cleaning.
Exploratory and inferential data analysis: The methods of exploratory and inferential data analysis and their application in dental research are explained.
Exploratory data analysis: Practical session with exercises in tabulating data, cleaning data, pivoting data, split-apply-combine technique, creating tables and figures.
Scientific Writing and Presentations: Techniques for writing scientific articles and oral presentations in dentistry are taught.
Practical session: poster design.
The research protocol: The development of a research protocol in dentistry is taught, from its design to its presentation.