Survey of Opionions on Competencies Standards in Dentistry for New Dental Graduates

Abstract

Objective : To assess the opinions of full-time Faculty staffs inclinical departments and dental practitioners on competencies standard in Dentistry for new dental graduates of Chulalongkorn University. Research Design : Cross-sectional descriptive study. Subjects : all 101 full-time Faculty staffs in 10 clinicaldepartments of Faculty of Dentistry, Chulalongkorn University and 276random sample of dental practitioners currently practiced both ingovernment and/or in private sectors in Thailand. Methods : Competency statements of clinical competencies fromcompetency standards of 3 dental schools in the United states of Americawere adapted and translated to form a questionnaire. The questionnaireconsisted 115 statements grouped into 15 major competencies. For each item,a response was requested on a Likert-like 5 point scale and open-endedopinions. Space was also provided at the end of the questionnaire forfurther comments. The validity of the scale was review by eight experts inDentistry. The reliability of the scale was evaluated using its internalconsistency as an indicator. The cronbach coefficient was 0.9745. Themeasurement was performed once in each group. The obtained data wereanalyzed using descriptive statistics. Result : The response rates of Dental Faculty staffs and dentalpractitioners were 85% and 53.3% respectively. The mean + SD for 115competency items ranged from 2.61±1.09 to 5.0±0.00 for Faculty staffs and 2.61±1.10 to 4.93±0.32 for dental practitioners. Thecompetency items rated as mostly agreed : agreed : moderately agreed were 47(40.87%):57(49.57%):11(9.56%) by Faculty staffs and 47(40.87%):63(54.78%):5(4.35%) by general practitioners. There wererelative agreement between both groups except 3 major competencies :occlusal therapy, orthodontic therapy and community involvement. Open endedopinions reveled various perspective towards the statements. Concerns forother standard competencies not provided in the questionnaire andrecommendation for curriculum improvement were also given.