Table 2. Characteristics of the selected studies in endodontics.

S. no	Author, Year, Country	VR system	Participants	Study design	Assessment tool	Tested outcome	Results
Abbreviations: CBCT, cone beam computerized tomography; CST, cross sectional trial; DS, dental students; FFB, force feedback; RCT, randomized controlled trial; VR, virtual reality.
1	Pohlenz et al 2010, Germany 15	Medified Voxel-Mann virtual simulator with haptic feedback	(53) DS of different years	CST	Students performed virtual apicectomies and responded to a questionnaire	1–5 scale to detect simulator is useful, realistic, sufficient, and desirable	The students indicated that FFB, spatial 3D perception, and image resolution of the simulator were sufficient
2	Suebnukarn et al 2010, Thailand 43	VR haptic simulator with augmented kinematic feedback	(32) 4th year DS	RCT	Virtual access cavity preparation in upper 1st molar (Three groups received kinematic augmented feedback and one control group did not)	Performance scores	The three kinematic feedback groups significantly scored higher with no significant difference in between
3	Suebnukarn et al 2011, Thailand 44	VR haptic simulator	(32) 4th year DS	RCT	Access cavity preparation was assessed before and after training for both groups on an extracted tooth	Procedural errors assessed by an expert	Post training error scores improved significantly for both groups. Hard tissue loss was significantly less in the haptic group, but not time
4	Suebnukarn et al 2012, Thailand 14	VR haptic simulator	(10) Post graduate endodontic trainees	RCT	Endodontic microsurgery of apicectomy	Endodontic competency scale by two experts	Significant higher scores of trials performed after virtual presurgical training
5	Wang et al 2015, China 45	iDental surgical simulator with a haptic device	(10) Fresh-graduate DS, (10) Residents	CST	Two dental drilling tasks:1-carries removal, 2- pulp chamber opening Subjective evaluation questionnaire	Time and amount of tissue removed	Insignificant differences between groups, though the residents spent more time. Dentists’ showed positive attitudes toward the system
6	Reymus et al 2020, Germany 46	VR environment	(32) 3rd year DS	CST	Root canal anatomy studies on periapical radiographs, CBCT scan and virtual reality environment	Post training knowledge questionnaire	CBCT or VR had significant better results than periapical radiograph. Most students’ preferred method of studying dental anatomy was VR