How confident are dental students in their ability to treat special care patients after they graduate?

Introduction: Given the significant increase in patients with special needs, dental degree programmes need to evolve in order to prepare dental graduates to treat these patients effectively. To better understand how current curricula prepare students to treat patients with special needs, this study explored final year dental students as the main stakeholder in this field, to understand their confidence in treating patients with special needs after completing their degrees and evaluated their readiness based on competencies outlined by The International Association for Disability and Oral health (iADH).

Methods: a questionnaire was designed to assess how ready and prepared students felt about treating special care patients independently after graduation and to evaluate iADH outlined competencies. The questionnaire was completed by final year dental students in two Universities, one in Scotland the other in Spain.

Results: A total of 30 students completed the questionnaire. Overall, students from the University of Aberdeen felt more confident in providing dental care to patients with special needs. In general, students from both universities thought they would be able to improve their clinical management of patients with special needs by having more practical sessions in the curriculum targeted at treating patients with learning and physical disabilities. Many of the students suggested that the most beneficial teaching mode would include problem-based teaching complemented with small group tutorials.

Conclusion: Final year dental students from the two Universities suggested that introducing more clinical sessions targeted at treating patients with special needs would be beneficial for them to develop and refine their skills and boost their confidence to treat special needs patients independently after graduation.