HDR Student Update - Kamal Hanna

The Impact of Patient-Centred Dental Open Educational Resources (OER) on Enhancing Shared Clinical Decision-Making in Dental Practice.

The utilization of the internet in patient education is an effective way of improving healthcare knowledge. Open Educational Resources (OER) are digitised materials that offer an open and flexible learning opportunity.

OER are either open access or open content. Dental OER consist of freely accessible information that is available on websites of dental clinics, professional associations, affiliated universities and hospitals. Open content dental OER allows growth of content by collaboration. It includes, but is not limited to, wiki, blogs, podcasts and other social media web applications.

Clinical decision making involves dentist-patient interaction, communication and exchange of knowledge. Treatment outcomes are improved when patients are more involved in the decision-making process. It is argued in this research that, dental OER guided patients have deeper knowledge and more control over their own health condition than unguided patients. Moreover, this research will evaluate the impact of dental OER on enhancing patient engagement in: the process of shared clinical decision making, satisfaction, confidence and improvement in quality of life.

Evaluation will be carried out via a controlled clinical trial. Data will be collected through a questionnaire and semi-structured interview. This research will contribute to Patient Education Theory and fills in the gap in knowledge regarding the applicability of using patient-centered OER in dental patient education.