Page 44 - Demo

Chapter 342questionnaires (i.e. the Endodontic General Self-Efficacy Scale and the Endodontic Self-Perceived Competence Scale) were, therefore, merged, and the separate questions of the scales randomly mixed to form one combined questionnaire. The online questionnaire contained this combined questionnaire and additional questions about the type of undergraduate endodontic programme the students followed. These questions concerned whether they attended the revised or former theoretical training modules, modules of assessment and clinical training modules as well as how many root canal treatments they performed on patients under supervision of the general dental practitioners and how many under supervision of the endodontists. It was assumed that the students answered the questions honestly. All participants can be considered appropriately skilled in performing root canal treatment since they all succeeded in the summative assessment. Still, there might be differences in their performance. Therefore, two observers assessed the quality of the first root canal treatment the students performed on a patient, following succeeding in the summative assessment. This assessment was performed on a radiograph with the use of predetermined criteria. The quality of the treatment was evaluated per root canal, and it was scored as ‘good’ when it met the following criteria: root filling follows the natural root canal and is completely within the confines of the root (no extrusion); root filling ending not shorter than 0-2 mm from the apex; root filling appears well condensed on the periapical radiograph and no ledges, perforations, transportations or separated instruments are detectable on the periapical radiograph or reported in the chart. The quality of the root canal treatment under investigation was scored as ‘good’ when all the root canals of the corresponding tooth were scored as ‘good’. In case of disagreement between the observers, a discussion took place until a consensus was reached. To determine the intra-observer reliability, the assessment was repeated on one-fourth of the sample a few months after the initial evaluation.Statistical analysisData were analysed using IBM SPSS Statistics version 21.0 software (IBM Corp.; Armonk, NY, USA). The separate questions were ordinal data and therefore analysed using Mann-Whitney U tests. Self-efficacy and self-perceived competence were considered numerical data and therefore analysed using Independent Samples T-tests. Furthermore, Cronbach’s alpha and Cohen’s kappa tests were used to analyse the reliability of the questionnaires and the observers, respectively.Annemarie Baaij.indd 42 28-06-2023 12:26