Evaluation of Diagnostic skill of senior dental students of Guilan university of medical sciences about common oral diseases in 2014-2015

Dentists have the first and the most important role in the process of diagnosis and treatment of oral and dental diseases. The small and asymptomatic lesion can be recognized by their attention and vigilance. Therefore, the aim of this study is to evaluate the diagnostic skills of senior dental students of Guilan University of Medical Sciences about common oral diseases.
In this cross-sectional study the diagnostic skills of 56 senior dental students of Guilan University of Medical Sciences about common oral diseases were evaluated in 2014-2015. The total number of rasht and international branch of Guilan dental students were 71.The data were collected by using Sarabadani's pictorial questionnaire that its validity and reliability were confirmed by 8 oral medicine specialists through the content (CVR= 0.86) and Test - retest (CVI=80%) respectively. This questionnaire had been distributed between 8 oral medicine specialists. This questionnaire was consisted of three questions about opinion assessment and eleven questions about skill evaluation also,powerpoints were used for image presentation. The data were analyzed by using SPSS software and t- independent test.
of 56 students with average age of (24.59±1.58) participated in this study, 25 students (44.6%) were male and 31 (55.4%) were female. The average score of diagnostic skills of senior dental students of of Guilan University of Medical Sciences was 0.37±0.24 . The average score of diagnostic skills of senior dental students of Rasht dental faculty (0.44±0.25) was significantly higher than the average score of diagnostic skills of senior dental students of international branch of Guilan dental faculty (0.28±0.19) (p=0.11). In Rasht dental school , the score of diagnostic skills of female students(0.47±0.23) was higher than male dental students(2.09±0.60)(P=0.267) and in international branch of Guilan dental school, the score of diagnostic skills of male students (0.29±0.20) was higher than female dental students (0.23±0.15), (p=0.552). However in both faculties there was not any significant difference between student's diagnostic skills and their genders.
The findings show significant difference between location of study and acquired scores about ulcerative (p=0.049) and exophytic(p=0.050) lesions.
Diagnostic skills of dental students of Guilan about common oral diseases was weak, therefore it is recommended to adopt new educational techniques and greater interaction between medical and dental staff for achieving higher educational skills.