Digital simulation technologies have already been included in dental curriculums in a number of countries for undergraduate students. Digital microscopes, virtual pathology slides, digital X-ray images, digital dentistry skill training machines, and digital assessment systems are just a few of the simulation technologies available. However, dental schools are facing a number of issues as they integrate digital dentistry into their regular curriculums. To operate advanced technologies, a large number of people must be thoroughly and efficiently trained. The digital software must connect easily with existing software, and an internal infrastructure capable of managing huge data inputs must be built. To meet demand, high-volume production in large dental institutions necessitates the cooperation of external laboratories. This outsourcing creates a new issue in terms of secure digital data transfer in conformity with regulating agencies' patient privacy and protection standards. Large dental institutions must be aware of the unique problems they face when attempting to implement a digital workflow. An appropriate infrastructure can be developed with sufficient preparation and planning, allowing for a smooth and safe transition to the digital era.
Dental education, like other academic areas, has experienced significant changes. Modern oral health education demands the adaptation of instructional techniques that need higher level thoughtful abilities. Gies(13) emphasized the initial necessity for curriculum modification in dentistry schools to "progress instruction”. Furthermore, a range of scientific research(14–17) has underlined the need for a pedagogical shift in dentistry education toward a more technologically based curriculum. The academic institutions themselves are seen to be driving this broad interest in curriculum change to increase the quality of oral health instruction for dentistry students. Graduates will be more equipped for a professionally competitive market if education is improved.(14) Baum(15) proposed that various variables, such as altering demographic trends, advancements in medical areas, a tremendous change in offering cutting-edge health care, and economic situations, have influenced the need for an emphasis on curriculum reform in dentistry education.
Digitalization is commonly utilized in dentistry education to improve document accessibility and facilitate cooperation and communication among students, professors, and administrative personnel. It is vital to encourage a shift in the dental faculty's perspective to promote theoretical and practical knowledge transfer to meet these expectations. Even though dental students must now be equipped for digital dentistry, they must still learn about traditional treatment techniques and processes. They will quickly adapt to digital characteristics as they grow up in the digital environment. Digital dentistry provides various opportunities for objective, standardized evaluation of student performance, which should improve quality. It is presently a "teaching transition phase," and new dentistry education criteria must be created in general.(11, 18–20)
Many studies found that digital dentistry has gained in popularity among not only dental educators but also among behavioural, social, and educational professionals.(18, 21) To improve their educational experience and future careers ; therefore dental students are suggested to use the digital technology.(22) Students are immersed in digital dentistry and, as a result, are typically excited and motivated about using technology in their future jobs.(23, 24) However, no studies on students' knowledge about digital dentistry in actual practice have been published in Saudi Arabia. As a result, the current study was designed to measure dental students' knowledge and attitudes about digital dentistry.
According to the findings of this study, students had information in digital dentistry, and most of them learned about it in college. This outcome was unsurprising; meanwhile, it was in line with all prior research describing time as a critical issue for dental school administrators due to the excessive amount of knowledge delivered to students.(25) In this setting, educators have to be conscious of their responsibilities in training new dentists who will be managing persons with unique requests who will require empathy and informed consent for decision in every treatment. Although digital tools and applications in information transmission constitute a usual problem for education in all fields, the area of dentistry, with its large proportion of practical training units, is particularly challenging. Students do not learn on their own since training modules are developed digitally. The cornerstone to successful dental education remains continuous instruction with supervision and feedback. In this context, digitalization is unquestionably a fantastic chance to deliver learning content with tremendous excitement and newly awakened passion.
According to the findings of this study, students had a favourable approach toward digital dentistry that agrees with prior research.(10, 26, 27) Students' overall behavioural intentions regarding digital dentistry revealed that they are eager to employ it in their future practice.
Females and intern and clinical students revealed higher levels of knowledge than did males and preclinical students. Women and clinical students had higher used digital dentistry than men and either intern or preclinical students. That might be because the level of knowledge gradually increased across the classes, with preclinical students having the lowest level of knowledge and intern and clinical students having the highest level of expertise. Furthermore, that indicates a superior understanding of digital dentistry and relates to a greater intention to utilize digital technology. This pattern is an excellent predictor of student success and development as they progress through their educational experience. Determining shortcomings in perceived training quality relating to faculty, laboratory assistance, lectures, time or might help target future efforts to address some of these exhaustive difficulties.
It stands to reason the students who believe their training to be of high quality have more information than students with lesser training, which may be related to problems in the instruction taken.(19, 20) The research, as mentioned earlier, compared student performance utilizing new digital technology to traditional approaches and polled students on their choices. They proposed that students obtain more knowledge if they believe the instruction is of good quality that significantly affects future education programs in dentistry. According to the present poll, students have a favourable attitude about the usage of digital technology as compared to traditional ways.
Notifying dental students of the degree of technology used during training and emphasizing the value of utilizing technology might influence their willingness to utilize it in the future. Therefore, future attempts to develop dentistry education should focus on elements related to a student's behavioural intention. Enhancing student understanding and views regarding digital dental technology, from the perspective of the dental educator, is critical for students to involve with digital technology in their practice after graduation. Furthermore, utilizing digital technology during dental procedures with relevant experiences using decent equipment with good information and plenty of training time is probable to assist students in developing favourable approaches toward using technology. Again, that might increase the likelihood of using this technology.
Surveys help assess the level of knowledge attained by the practitioners/participants and enable the researchers to reach a wider group of population and assess the awareness, knowledge, and practice of the practitioners, especially regarding the recent advancements in dentistry. The limitations of our survey are that it is confined to a smaller number of respondents, cannot be generalized to a large population. Because this was cross-sectional research, it merely revealed connections rather than causality. Furthermore, web-based surveys are inaccessible to challenging respondents who may lack access to the survey. Sometimes sampling errors arise due to online surveys, and open-ended questions and responses might lead to interviewer bias. Even though students appear to be driven toward digital dentistry, and findings show that they want to employ the technology in actual training and future practice, it was not examined; this could be highlighted in future research. The study's findings are confined to the demographic studied undergraduate dentistry students. These findings cannot be extrapolated to other groups, but they can help future studies. Differences in technology use for groups with varied characteristics should be considered for future processes of invention and deployment of digital technologies to be acceptable for dentists and their job. Attitudes toward digital technology may further shape these inequalities, which should be investigated more in the future. An enormous population, particularly for a specific speciality/age/experience group of dentists, should be examined in the future.