Jitka Feberová

Medical faculties educational network

Today, World Wide Web technology provides many opportunities in the disclosure of electronic learning and teaching content. The MEFANET project (MEdical FAculties NETwork) has initiated international, effective and open cooperation among all Czech and Slovak medical faculties in the medical education fields. This paper introduces the original MEFANET educational web portal platform. Its main aim is to present the unique collaborative environment, which combines the sharing of electronic educational resources with the use tools for their quality evaluation. It is in fact a complex e-publishing system, which consists of ten standalone portal instances and one central gateway. The fundamental principles of the developed system and used technologies are reported here, as well as procedures of a new multidimensional quality assessment.

Dental implants and improvement of oral health-related quality of life

OBJECTIVES Oral health-related quality of life (OHRQoL) is a multifaceted field involving many factors. The aim of our study was to assess whether implant therapy improves OHRQoL in dental patients. METHODS Patients receiving at least one implant completed a health-related questionnaire before and after the implantation (minimum 1.5 months). Questions covered the functional and aesthetic scales (AS). Paired differences in individual scores were analysed using the Wilcoxon signed-rank test. A univariate analysis of covariance was used to relate overall and scale-specific average paired differences to age, gender, marital and educational status. Multivariate analysis of covariance was used to assess interactions between the covariates and different scales of outcome. All tests were performed at statistical significance level α = 0.05. RESULTS All twelve Wilcoxon tests supported an improvement in OHRQoL after implant placement. On the AS, the mean difference in OHRQoL scores was found to be associated with marital status, presence of aesthetic reasons for undergoing the surgery and number of front teeth replaced by implants. On the functional scale (FS), most significant associations were observed with the number of front teeth replaced via implantation, followed by the presence of chewing problems and marital status. The multivariate analysis helped to identify the covariates that varied significantly over the two scales of interest. CONCLUSIONS Effects of covariates responding significantly differently on different scales should not be summarized using an overall univariate analysis, using paired score differences averaged over all items. Such effect summary would be misleading. In the present study, significant implant-related improvements in OHRQoL were observed on both the aesthetic and FS in patients with at least one implant in the front dental area.

Evaluation of health care related web resources based on web citation analysis and other quality criteria

Automatic system for ranking of educational health care related Web resources based on quality criteria was developed. Automatic retrieval of new Web resources from well-known directories followed by their automatic evaluation is a keystone of the system. The system provides this information: a) location of the resource and its author, b) number of back links to the resource, c) checks presence of electronic labels of quality. Currently the system encompasses more than 500 links to educational Web resources divided into 47 medical specialities. The resources in all categories are ranked according to their link popularity, the electronic labels of quality are presented. History of link popularity is recorded and might be displayed at every resource. There are 2 language editions. The system operates automatically, the editors check and correct the retrieved values. The described system adds to Website indexing criteria for objective evaluation of quality of Webpages. It is useful for the selection of optimum education resources in health care

Oral health-related quality of life and dental implants — preliminary study

Oral health-related quality of life (OHRQoL) is multifaceted and involves many factors. One of them is the use of dental implants. It was the aim of our study to assess whether implant therapy might improve OHRQoL. We consulted patients with at least one Astra Tech implant. Each patient completed oral health questionnaires, which were then statistically evaluated using the Wilcoxon signed-ranks test and Analysis of Covariance from a functional and aesthetic point of view. Differential response on individual scales was assessed using multivariate approach. All twelve marginal Wilcoxon tests showed an overall improvement in OHQoL (α = 0.05). On the aesthetic scale, OHRQoL was found to be associated with marital status, aesthetic reasons for undergoing surgery and number of front teeth replaced by implants. On the functional scale, three covariates were statistically significantly and appeared to have affected the levels of OHRQoL. The most significant explanatory effect was observed for the number of front teeth replaced via implantation, followed by the presence of chewing problems. Marital status was also found to have significantly affected the OHRQoL functional scale. Significant implant-related improvements in both scales were observed in patients with at least one implant in the front dental area.