Evaluation of the effectiveness of a flowchart as an adjunct in teaching periodontal diagnosis

Abstract

Considering the different types of periodontal diseases, which require different forms of treatment, the establishment of an accurate diagnosis is critical, to avoid inefficient treatments. Thus, this study aimed to evaluate the use of a flow chart as an aid in the teaching diagnosis of periodontal disease. Sixty students of Dentistry at the Universidade Estadual de Maringá, equally distributed between the 3rd, 4th and 5th year graduation accepted to participate to this experimental and crossover study. Students underwent three hypothetical periodontal clinical questions, whose diagnoses should first be presented without the flowchart and then with the auxiliary tool. Without the flowchart, the amount of correct diagnosis was 52%, while with the flowchart, this value corresponded to 84% (p <0.0001). There was no difference in the number of correct and incorrect diagnoses between the years of graduation. It can be concluded that the use of the flowchart as an aid in diagnosing periodontal increases the number of correct periodontal diagnosis.