Investigating the desire of last year dental students towards conducting orthodontic treatments in their future profession

Orthodontics is a significant part of general dentistry education. Yet, many general dentistry graduates seldom practice orthodontics. This study assesses the desire of last-year dental students at Shahid Beheshti Dental School towards orthodontic treatments in their future career.

A questionnaire was validated by ten dental specialists. For reliability, it was re-administered to ten students after ten days. Descriptive statistics were used for results presentation. The Mann-Whitney test compared ranked responses, and the Kruskal-Wallis test compared grade point average (GPA) variations. The comparison of mean opinions based on age, gender, and academic term was conducted with the t-test independent samples and based on GPA status with a one-way ANOVA. Analyses were done using SPSS 25, with a significance level of 0.05.

In this study, 58 last-year students were questioned in line with the research objectives. More than half of the students believe that the hours dedicated to teaching orthodontic courses at university are insufficient (65%), the quality of theoretical teaching is low (55%), practical teaching hours and presence in the department are inadequate (48%). Only 15 percent of students declared they have the necessary confidence to diagnose and conduct orthodontic treatments after graduation. About half of the students express an interest in attending supplementary orthodontics courses after graduation (39%).

According to approximately half of the students’ opinions, the quality of teaching theoretical and conceptual orthodontics courses is low. Additionally, students lack the necessary confidence and desire to diagnose, plan, and perform treatments after graduation.