Abstract
This study used an endodontic model to investigate the effect of glove wearing on tactile sensitivity. Dental students, all of whom had worn gloves throughout their clinical training, used a file to detect resistance at the apical end of an endodontic teaching aid. Wearing gloves produced a statistically significant reduction in tactile sensitivity. As large intra- and inter-subject variations were observed both with and without gloves, the sensitivity change brought about by the wearing of the latter seems unlikely to be of significance in clinical endodontics.