Introduction: Dental undergraduates will access the Internet searching for learning materials to complement their training; however, open access content is not generally recommended by dental schools. This study aimed to evaluate how dental students are using online video content.Materials and Methods: Students from eight Universities (Athens, Birmingham, Brescia, Cardiff, Melbourne, Paris, Sao Paulo and Valdivia) representing three continents were invited to complete a survey on their access and learning from online videos.Results: International students behave similarly when studying dental content online. Of 515 respondents, 94.6% use the Internet as a learning tool. It was observed that videos are not frequently recommended during didactic lectures (9.6%). But many students (79.9%) will use YouTube for their learning which includes clinical procedures. Students will check online content before performing procedures for the first time (74.8%), to understand what was explained in class (65.9%) or read in books (59.5%), to relearn clinical techniques (64.7%) and to visualise rare procedures (49.8%). More than half of the students do not fully trust the accuracy or the reliability of online content. This does not prevent students from watching and sharing dental videos with classmates (64.4%). The content watched is not shared with teachers (23.3%) even when it contradicts what was learnt in the school (38.2%).Conclusion: This study concludes that students regularly integrate open access digital resources into learning portfolios but are hesitant to inform their teachers about their viewing habits. Students wish to receive critical skills on how to evaluate the material they encounter outside their traditional learning space.

The information and communication technologies (ICT) add a new dimension, influenced by the perception that the current society is globally interconnected, that our knowledge and our vision of the world is transitory, is always incomplete and reprocessing, that we can access continuously and permanently any and all information, and create simulations of the real world .

Processo de criação de um aplicativo móvel na área de odontologia para pacientes com necessidades especiais

This paper describes the possibilities of using Teledentistry to expand and qualify health care in oral health care networks. WHO already recommended to its member countries, even before the pandemic, Telehealth as a strategy to improve the quality of services, especially in universal systems, as the Unified Health System (SUS). Teledentistry opens opportunities for oral health to resume the provision of various services, remotely, such as: 1) Tracking, active search, monitoring of priority users, those at risk and with systemic problems, suspicions of COVID-19 and contacts, through Telemonitation; 2) Initial listening, individual or collective educational activities, through Teleorientation; 3) Discussion of clinical cases for the definition of the opportunity / need for operative procedures, matrix support, sharing, solution of doubts among professionals and between these and teaching and research institutions, by Teleconsulting, among others. In addition to a review of Teledentistry in the context of the pandemic, we conceptualized the terms used and possibilities offered to SUS professionals, in addition to specifying the possible protocols for recording these activities to provide safe data for their monitoring and evaluation. Besides, we bring a brief discussion with promising experiences, carried out in the pre- and trans-pandemic contexts, which can be important strategies for the resumption of oral health in the post-pandemic scenario.

Background: With the COVID-19 pandemic, thousands of children had their dental care interrupted or postponed, generating a pent-up demand for primary care. To minimize the impact of this outage, information and communication technologies (ICT) could be an alternative. The aim of this study is to elucidate the impact of implementing the ICTs in primary dental care for children on resolving the pent-up demand for primary dental care to children in the national health system service (SUS) due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: Different research strategies are being proposed to demonstrate such effect and extrapolating findings to a real-world context to guide further research, practice and policies: two clinical trials (one randomized controlled by the waiting list trial (RCT) and a before-and-after study), one simulation study to prospect trial results to a broader population and three economic evaluations using different effects. Children enrolled in a reference dental unit will be invited to participate in the before-and-after study for trials. The first 368 families will be randomized for the RCT to the intervention vs waiting list. All participants will receive the intervention, but the waiting list group will be assessed before the intervention is available for them. The intervention comprises standardized non-face-to-face primary dental care using the V4H platform. The problem-solving and the family's perception will be the primary outcomes set for the before-and-after study and RCT, respectively. They will be measured 2 weeks after randomization. Based on trial findings, we will develop theoretical models to estimate how the intervention could benefit the population included in the national health system. Three economic evaluations will be carried out considering different trial effects (cost-effectiveness analyses). A societal perspective and the pandemic time horizon will be considered. Possible social impact (inequalities) will also be explored. Discussion: This ongoing trial may be an essential contribution to clarify positive and negative aspects related to the use of technologies for non-face-to-face dental care for children. Trial products may bring relevant contributions to the pandemic context and the post-pandemic period. Potential benefits may be feasible to implement and preserve in the health system even in the post-pandemic period. Trial registration Clinicaltrials.gov registration NCT04798599 (registered March 2021).