Evidence based dentistry

Aims of the course are to provide to the student
- the philosophical and scientific bases to approach medical sciences in evidence-based way
- basic skills to allow an evidence-based clinical practice

At the end of the course, the students will know
- which are the suitable resources to retrieve reliable scientific information;
- to search the most important biomedical databases in order to identify evidence useful for the resolution of clinical problems;
- to assess the basic research methods and the effects they have on the results, with particular attention to the methods used in preclinical dental research;
- to know which is the most appropriate design for a specific clinical problem;
- to identify the purpose and design of a clinical study and judge whether the latter is suitable for the first;
- to know the main elements of a clinical study, based on the PICO acronym, knowing the implications they have on the interpretation of the results;
- to assess the validity of the results of a clinical study by identifying and evaluating the main bias affecting the main areas of clinical research: diagnosis, prognosis, treatment and harm or cause;
- to know the meaning of the main quantitative indicators such as relative risk, relative risk reduction, absolute risk reduction, odds ratio, number needed to treat;
- to know the meaning of the most common statistical tests and interpret uncertainty indicators such as the "p" or the confidence interval;
- to know the main characteristics and clinical value of systematic reviews and the meaning of meta-analysis techniques.