Behavioural Sciences and Scientific Methodology

1. History of psychology
2. Scientific method in psychology
3. Sensation and perception
4. Attention
5. Learning and memory
6. Thinking and reasoning
7. Language and communication
8. Emotion
9. Stress and coping
10. Motivation
11. Personality
12. Health and illness
13. Doctor-patient relationship
14. Pain
15. Dentophobia
16. Stress and burnout

1) General concepts of Pedagogy: - Definition, fields of study and application fields of special pedagogy - Italian legislation and international provisions. - Pedagogical models of understanding and intervention towards subjects in situations of fragility, hardship, handicap and illness. - Pedagogical skills of the dentist: examples of applicability in a dental operating context
2) The development of learning skills: - The stages of development of cognitive function - Multiple intelligences according to Gardner - The memory - Learning disorders (DSA)
3) The educational relationship - Different styles - Communication as a working tool in the dentist-patient relationship - Obstacles and barriers to effective communication - Approach to children of families with migration problems: use of graphic symbols as an element of facilitation - Psycho-pedagogical aspects of child abuse: the interceptive role of the dentist - Reading and meaning of the drawing as a support tool in the relationship between dentist and pediatric patient - The "fear of the dentist": indicators of discomfort, anxiety and suffering in children's drawings
4) Construction of educational courses and learning units: realization of a "pedagogical project" oral hygiene education in different age groups

Assessment of the reliability of the methods of collection and measurement of biomedical data
1. Illustrate the concept of sample, population, estimate and parameter
2. Provide examples of systematic errors and random errors
3. Quantitative and qualitative variables
4. Variability of quantitative variables within subject and between subjects
5. Graphical representations of a distribution
6. Position and dispersion indices, and shape of a distribution
7. Indexes of accuracy and precision of a measure
8. Quantiles (quartiles, centiles) and reference limits
9. Correlation and Kappa statistic

Gaussian model
10. Describe the characteristics of the gaussian model of the distribution of measurement errors
11. Interpretation of population data using the Gaussian model

Screening tests
12. Elements of set theory
13. Probability of an event and its calculation
14. Calculate the probability of the intersection of independent events, and the probability of conditioned events
15. The logic of a screening test
16. Define the concept of a false positive and a false negative outcome with respect to a threshold value of the diagnostic marker
17. Define the concepts of sensitivity and specificity of a diagnostic test
18. Calculate and discuss the concept of positive and negative predictive value
19. Define the likelihood ratio for a positive (or negative) outcome in a diagnostic test
20. Define the concept of probability and odds pre-test and post-test
21. Explain the meaning of Bayes' theorem

Sample estimate of population parameters and sampling distribution
22. Illustrate the concept of sample variability. Distinguish the concepts of sample and population
23. Distinguish the concepts of sample estimation of a parameter and population parameter
24. Illustrate the meaning of distribution of the sample estimates
25. Illustrate the meaning of standard error of a sample estimate

Confidence interval and its interpretation
26. Concept of confidence interval and its interpretation
27. Calculation of confidence interval

Hypothesis test
28. Type I and type II error, concept of statistical power of a test
29. Calculation of sample size
30. Difference between statistical significance and clinical relevance
31. Knowing how to construct a statistical test when the efficacy is expressed as a mean or difference between means
32. Knowing how to distinguish between independent and paired samples.
32. Knowing how to construct a statistical test when the efficacy is expressed as the difference between dependent samples
33. Knowing how to construct a statistical test when the efficacy is expressed as a proportion or difference between proportions
34. Test of independence between variables: the chi-square

· Foundations of Computer Science
o Introduction to Computer Science
o Information coding
o Computer structure
o Programs and software
o The "Infosphera" risks
· Spreadsheets
o Introduction to spreadsheets
o General functions in Excel
o Statistical functions in Excel
o Chart creation in Excel
· Information management
o Introduction to information management
o Data storing and databases
o Relational databases
o Database creation
o Query composition
o Web databases
· Internet and web
o Computer networks
o The Internet network
o Web architecture
o Web standards
o Web contents
o Search engines
o Web evolutions

The aim of this course is to provide concepts of evidence based medicine, to explain the importance of literature and bibliometric indexes in the scientific world, and to teach how to search and evaluate scientific literature using the currently available tools.
Topics:
1. Introduction to Evidence-Based Medicine: the weight of information deriving from scientific literature in daily therapeutic choices. The scale of evidence: what are the most reliable information depending on the type of study. Characteristics of the main experimental designs in medicine and dentistry.
2. How an experimental research is organized: from the formulation of the working hypothesis based on the objective of the study, to the collection of data according to the quantitative analysis.
3. Primary and secondary studies: systematic reviews of the literature, what they are and what they serve for. The Cochrane Library.
4. History and meaning of bibliometric indicators: Impact factor, Citation Index, Hirsch index, etc. The Web of Science. How dentistry is placed in the field of biomedical sciences in terms of impact factor of dental journals, quality of published studies, value of researchers.
5. Research sources of scientific literature. How the main electronic databases are made and used to obtain information and to identify the relevant literature (Medline, Embase, Google Scholar, etc.), with practical examples.