[Effect of clinical experience on the shade matching accuracy].
OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the effect of clinical experience on the shade matching accuracy.


METHODS
Thirty-seven dental students (group A) who had 1 to 2 years of clinical experience and 57 dental students (group B) who didn't have clinical experience took part in this experiment. Participants were divided into two groups (TTB group and TT group) and used the Toothguide Training (TT) and Toothguide Training Box (TTB) respectively. All participants received training session once a week for 3 weeks. Before training and each time after finished training all participants were asked to identify ten unlabeled tabs which had been randomly chosen from Vita 3D-master shadeguide. SPSS 16.0 software package was used for Wilcoxon signed rank test.


RESULTS
Before training, the accuracy rate of group A and group B was (65.67±20.4)% and (70.17±17.57)% respectively. After training, the accuracy rate of group A and group B was (78.91±22.82)% and (80.17±17.77)% respectively. No significant difference was found between group A and B, but significant difference was found between before and after training.


CONCLUSIONS
This study shows clinical experience is not found to be a significant factor to the teeth shade matching. The training can improve the accuracy of shade matching.
Department of Prosthodontics, Xiangya Hospital, Changsha 410008, Hunan Province, China. rgdwuyi@gmail.com
Yi
Y
Wu
Qing-ping
QP
Gao
Xiao-yu
XY
Zhang
Bao-gui
BG
Yang
Zhi-ying
ZY
Chen
Shou-yi
SY
Lu
D006801:Humans; D017797:Prosthesis Coloring; D014070:Tooth