Core Cultural Competency Needed for Thai Dental Students

Objective: To identify the core cultural competency required for achieving holistic approach in dental care of Thai dental students, which is one of the missions of the Healthy Dental School Network (HDS Net). Methods: The delphi technique was applied. Twenty six experts from educational and management backgrounds, both dentists and non-dentists, were selected. The first semi-structured questionnaire was sent to experts to rank and list the suggested cultural competency for Thai dental students. The aggregated lists were then presented to the experts in the second round for judgment of relative importance till the high consensus among experts was gained. Results: The response rates for the first and second rounds were 81.8 and 80 percents, respectively. The experts had consensus on 43 items for cultural competent care. Sixty three percents of the items were ranked as “the most important” and the rest as “important”. The full score was found for 10 items. The component of the competencies ranked from high to low average scores were cultural encounter, cultural skills, cultural awareness and cultural knowledge, respectively. Conclusions: The core cultural competency for Thai dental students regarding performance and awareness should be emphasized in order to achieve holistic care. The project was funded by Healthy Dental School Network, Thailand