Clinical reasoning in dentistry: a conceptual framework for dental education

Abstract

This study presents a conceptual framework for clinical reasoning by dental students. Using a think-aloud method with six vignettes, the researchers interviewed eighteen dental students from two stages of training about oral health-related problems influenced by biopsychosocial factors. Verbatim transcripts of the interviews were analyzed to identify the processes and strategies of clinical reasoning used by the students to produce treatment plans. The process included 1) rituals to collect information; 2) forward and backward reasoning to generate and test clinical hypotheses; 3) pattern recognition from integrated scripts of knowledge and experience; and 4) decision trees to assess options and outcomes. The process was supplemented by scientific, conditional, collaborative, narrative, ethical, pragmatic, and part-whole reasoning strategies. Senior students showed a keen awareness of the contextual determinants of care and emphasized patients' motivations for treatment. In contrast, junior students focused more on problems associated with individual teeth as they struggled to integrate the information within each vignette. In this article, the processes and strategies for reasoning used by both groups of dental students are abstracted and then illustrated by a model of clinical reasoning that accommodates the complicated contexts in which clinical problems usually arise.