Munshi, Nabeel. Clinical decision support and training system for diagnosis and management of complete denture complaints. Retrieved from https://doi.org/doi:10.7282/T3MK6GB3
DescriptionBackground: Complete denture is considered one of the most challenging treatment modalities in dentistry. Any error occurs during any step of the complete denture fabrication can result in patient’s complaint. Troubleshooting complete denture complaints is very challenging for several reasons. First, all the teeth are connected into one denture base that is supported by a movable resilient mucosa make it difficult to isolate the errors. Second, one patient’s complaint could be due to several causes and at the same time one cause can lead to many patient’s complaints. Third, the diagnosis of each patient’s complaint must be approached systematically because adjusting the denture in a wrong spot may add another problem. Most of the complete denture treatment is provided by general dentists and depend only on their undergraduate training and clinical experience. There is a concern about the competency and level of skills of the undergraduate students in mastering the complete denture skills due to limited exposure to enough cases. The purpose of this research is to develop a new clinical decision support and training system to aid the general dentists and undergraduate students in diagnosis and management of complete denture complaints. Method: The new clinical decision support and training system was developed using Exsys Corvid Core software. The knowledge base of the system for the complete denture complaints, the complaints causes and the management protocol for each complaint were retrieved from the literature. The software was successfully loaded with 123 rules representing 48 patients’ complaints along with its detailed diagnostic methods and management protocol. After system development, the system was validated by ten expert prosthodontists using a survey questionnaire. The questionnaire results were statistically evaluated using Cronbach’s Alpha test. Results: The Cronbach’s Alpha reliability coefficient was 0.847, which represent a good internal consistency. The validation questionnaire results showed that all ten prosthodontists agreed on the need of such system and its user friendliness. Also, all prosthodontists agreed that the system is a good tool to assist the general dentists and undergraduate students in diagnosis and management of complete denture complaints. 90% of the prosthodontist agreed with the knowledge base of the system for the complete denture complaints, the causes of each complaints and the management protocol for each complaint. Conclusion: The clinical decision support and training system to aid the general dentists and undergraduate students in diagnosis and management of complete denture complaints was developed. The overall agreement of the ten evaluating prosthodontists with the system indicates that the system was successfully developed.