| Sumario: | Purpose: Oral health professionals have the skills to assist in disaster victim identification. The purpose of this pilot study was to assess cognitive and affective learning outcomes of dental hygiene and dental assisting students following a disaster victim identification (DVI) multi-media learning experience. Methods: A convenience sample of senior dental hygiene (n=27) and dental assisting (n=14) students completed an IRB-exempt descriptive pre-test/post-test study to assess perceived learning outcomes resulting from a multimedia DVI learning experience consisting of a PowerPoint presentation with audio/video recordings. After completing the learning experience, participants were presented with 5 sets of mismatched antemortem (AM) and postmortem (PM) digital bitewing radiographs to test their cognitive ability to indicate identification matches. Results: All participants (n=41) accurately matched at least four out of five radiographic DVI sets for an accuracy rate of 80%. Most participants (n=38, 92%) indicated they felt moderately or extremely confident to assist with DVIs as a result of curricula from their respective programs. A linear trend test revealed a statistically significant (p < 0.05) increase in perceived cognitive knowledge of DVI dental application skills for mass fatality incidents, and a statistically significant increase (p < 0.05) in perceived affective attitudes regarding perceived importance of their respective professions as DVI volunteers. Conclusions: Results show a multimedia learning module may significantly increase allied dental students' cognitive and affective abilities to aid in DVI efforts. Additional research with larger samples of allied dental students could provide more information about the efficacy of including such learning modules in curricula where there are current gaps.
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