توانمندي‌هاي دانشجويان دندانپزشكي در برنامه درسي دندان‌پزشكي جامعه‌نگر

Dental Studentsʹ Competencies in Community Dentistry Course

Introduction: Graduated dentistry students ought to be competent in differentfields ofcommunity dentistry such as health education, needs assessment, planning and policy making. The aim ofthis study was to assess the effect of community dentistry course on dental studentsʹ competencies in different fields of community dentistry through self-monitoring method in Isfahan School ofdentistry. Methods: This quasi-experimental study Hʹas conducted on tHIO groups using pre-test and post-test. Through census sampling method, 50 students vvere studied before and after passing the community dentistry course, as experiment group and 40 students who did not pass this course were studied as the control group at the time ofgraduation. The data gathering tool was a questionnaire which Hʹas completed by students as selfadministered. The questionnaire assessed studentsʹ competencies in 6 determined areas with a scale ranging from unacceptable to excellent. The results were analyzed by SPSS software using Paired t-test and t-test. Results: The difference between the scores (?l experiment groupʹs competencies in all six determined areas was significant, before and after passing the course. Comparing the scores of the experiment and control groups showed significant differences in all areas except in "preventive dentistry services ". Conclusion: Community dentistry course has been successful in making the students competent in community dentistry fields. In order to improve these results, it is recommended to devote more time andfacilities to the subjects such as needs assessment and course planning.