Training and experience effect on light-curing efficiency by dental practitioners.

Background: Light-curing is a crucial step during the application of composite resin restorations. Composite's success depends on delivering enough light energy to the resin to achieve adequate polymerization. However, dentists are not recognizing the importance of proper light-curing technique.

Objectives: To measure light energy delivered to simulated restorations by preclinical dental students and dentists in internship year. To evaluate the effect of experience and training on the clinician's ability to light-cure composite restorations.

Methods: A group of 50 preclinical dental students and a group of 50 internship dentists light-cured for 10 seconds, a simulated class III and class I restorations positioned in a patient simulator (MARC-Patient Simulator [BlueLight Analytics Inc., Canada]) that measured the irradiance and energy delivered by the curing light. Then participants received individualized training on optimizing their light-curing technique. They were retested after the training. Statistical analysis was done with two-way ANOVA and Tukey's test.

Results: Participants delivered an average of 60% more energy after the instructions, which is a significant improvement (P < 0.05). The number of participants that failed to deliver the minimum amount of energy (6 J/cm²) decreased significantly from 37.5% to 2.5%. There was a significant difference in the amount of energy delivered by the Preclinical and Internship groups (P < 0.05).

Conclusion: Initially, many participants were not using the curing light properly. Light-curing technique improved with training and using a patient simulator. Experience can enhance the operator's ability to light-cure composite restorations. However, a training session can improve light-curing performance more than years of experience.