Evaluating ChatGPT-4o as an Educational Support Tool for the Emergency Management of Dental Trauma: A Randomized Controlled Study among Students (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Digital tools are increasingly used to support clinical decision–making in dental education. However, the accuracy and efficiency of different support tools, including generative artificial intelligence (AI), in the context of dental trauma management remain underexplored. OBJECTIVE This study aimed to evaluate the accuracy of various information sources (chatbot, textbook, mobile app, and no support tool) in conveying clinically relevant educational content related to decision–making in the primary care of traumatically injured teeth. Additionally, the effect of the input strategy on the chatbots output response was evaluated. METHODS Fifty-nine dental students with limited prior experience in dental trauma were randomly assigned to one of four groups: chatbot (based on Generative Pretrained Transformer (GPT)-4o, n=15), digital textbook (n=15), mobile app (AcciDent App 3.5, n=15), and control group (no support tool, n=14). Participants answered 25 dichotomous questions in a digital examination format using the information source allocated to their group. The primary outcome measures were the percentage of correct responses, and the time required to complete the examination. Additionally, for the group using ChatGPT-4o, the quality of prompts and the clarity of chatbot responses were independently evaluated by two calibrated examiners using a 5–point Likert scale. Statistical analyses included non–parametric analyses using Kruskal–Wallis tests and mixed–effects regression analyses with a α level of .05. RESULTS All support tools led to a significantly higher accuracy compared to the control group (P<.05), with mean accuracies (%) of 87.47 (5.63), 86.40 (5.19) and 86.40 (6.38) for the textbook, the AcciDent App and ChatGPT-4o, respectively. The groups using the chatbot and the mobile app required significantly less time than the textbook group (P<.05). Within the ChatGPT-4o group, higher prompt quality was associated with greater clarity of the chatbot’s responses (OR 1.44, 95% CI 1.13–1.83, P<.05), which in turn increased the likelihood of students selecting the correct answers (OR 1.89, 95% CI 1.26–2.80, P<.05). CONCLUSIONS ChatGPT-4o and the AcciDent App can serve dental students as an accurate and time–efficient support tool in dental trauma care. However, the performance of ChatGPT-4o varies with the precision of the input prompt, underscoring the necessity for users to critically evaluate AI–generated responses. CLINICALTRIAL Open Science Framework, https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/XW62J