Effects of handpiece speed on the performance of undergraduate dental students in preclinical training

Objective Low-speed high-torque handpieces are popular for the pre-clinical training of dental students. However, in clinical practice, high-speed air turbine handpieces are commonly used. This dissimilarity creates a gap between pre-clinical and clinical training skills. The current study sought to evaluate the effects of the use of high-speed and low-speed handpieces by dental students during their pre-clinical training. Methods Twenty-one undergraduate dental students at the College of Dentistry of Taibah University participated in this study. Each student was asked to prepare class I cavities using high-speed air turbine and low-speed/high-torque handpieces. The time required for cavity preparation was recorded by the authors. The prepared cavities were evaluated for quality and skill using a six-point scale. The data were statistically analysed with paired t and Mann-Whitney tests. Results There was no significant difference in cavity preparation time between the low-speed and high-speed handpieces (538.29 and 483.76 s, respectively). The evaluations of the cavities revealed no difference in the quality of preparations between the low- and high-speed handpieces. Additionally, no significant difference in the surface roughness of the preparations was observed. Conclusions The type of handpiece did not influence the learning capabilities of the undergraduate dental students in the preparation of preparing class I cavities. This study did not observe any significant differences between the cavities that were prepared by our students using either high-speed or low-speed handpieces.