The Incentives of Choosing the Field of Study by Dental Students at Autonomous Campus in Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Science in 2015

The selection of educational field and consequently a career is one of the most important decisions in life, which can satisfy individuals’ material as well as mental needs. This research was conducted to assess the motivations of dental students on choosing their field of study, studying at the Autonomous Campus of Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Science (AJUMS). It was a cross-sectional descriptive-analytical research conducted on March 2015. The participants consisted of all 220 students of the Autonomous College of Dentistry where they were accepted through the nationwide-university-entrance examination, and they also had to pay a relatively high tuition. From participants who received the questionnaires, 58 (22 male and 36 female) completed the questionnaires. To analyze the data, descriptive statistics such as frequency, mean, Kolmogorov - Smirnov test, Mann-Whitney nonparametric comparison of means and SPSS software version 21 were utilized. Having an independent office (0.53±3.59), acquiring a proper social status (0.88±3.17) and achieving a high economic income (0.82±3.09) were respectively the main reasons for the students’ choice. Given the high unemployment rate of university graduates as well as the employment restrictions through governmental and private organizations, it seems that dentistry serves as a reliable and independent income, giving a social prestige and qualities like these would be the most important incentives of the applicants in choosing dentistry as their future ideal field of study.