Assessment of dental students’ competencies in community dentistry courses NOT PRESENTED

Introduction & Aim: On the base of oral health promotion policies in the
communities , all the graduated dental students should be competent in community
dentistry skills such as oral health education , need assessment and program planning.
The purpose of this study was to evaluate dental student’s competencies in the course
of community dentistry in Isfahan dental school.
Methods and materials: This semi-experimental study carried out as pre and post
program evaluation compared with a control group. Fifty dental students were asked
about their competencies with a self-administered questionnaire before and after
passing the community dentistry course while forty dental students who didn’t pass
this course, were tested just before graduation as a control group. In test group the
results of pre and post test scores compared with pair t-test. For post program
assessment between two groups t-test was used.
Result : This educational intervention showed successful improvement with highly
significant differences ( P<0.001 ) between pre-test and post-test of test group in all
items . Also significant differences (P<0.001) were found between post-tests of test
group and control group in all items of competencies, except for procedures of
primary preventive treatment (P=0.426).
Conclusion: This study showed that the community dentistry course taught in
Isfahan dental school made students competent in community dentistry skills. It is
suggested that retraining course for community dentistry lessons should be planned
for dentists who were not trained for the above.
Keywords: Course Evaluation, Competency, Community Dentistry.