Page 61 - Demo

Self-efficacy of undergraduate dental students594course that consists of 5 h of lectures and 7 h of tutorials on dental pain and traumatology. In the same year, the students follow a 10-week course which consists of 6 h of tutorials where discussions on scientific literature and clinical cases take place. In addition to the tutorials, the students follow 25 h of simulated clinical training during which they perform root canal treatment in a maxillary incisor, a maxillary molar and a mandibular molar, that are mounted in artificial jaws in manikin heads that are fixed to the dental chairs in the clinic. The students are supervised by endodontists and conclude this course with a summative assessment. Here, the student receives an endodontic case including patient anamneses, clinical findings and a periapical radiograph. The student then makes a diagnosis and a treatment plan based on this diagnosis and performs this treatment on an extracted human molar that is mounted in an artificial jaw in a manikin head that is fixed to a dental chair in the clinic. Consequently, students reflect on the treatment and their performance, which is evaluated by endodontists. Only passing students are allowed to perform root canal treatments on their patients in the clinic and only under supervision. A requirement to proceed to the final year is that the student has performed root canal treatment of at least three root canals in patients. Throughout their study, students are expected to apply their endodontic knowledge into their treatment planning, and this is tested on several occasions. At the final year of the undergraduate curriculum, an additional elective course in Endodontics is available, and approximately 17% of the students choose this course. The additional elective course consists of 21 h of tutorials to discuss endodontic literature and 128 h in the clinic to perform more complicated root canal treatments, on patients and on extracted human teeth, under supervision of endodontists. This course is open to all final year students. For the present study, all undergraduate dental students from AU and ACTA who were in their final year in 2016 or 2017 were invited to participate close to their graduations. The students were informed that the data would be processed anonymously. Participating students gave informed consent. Participation included completing a paper questionnaire that contained the Endodontic General Self-Efficacy Scale (Table 1) (Baaij & Özok 2018a) and questions on the appreciation of the amount of education the students received in endodontics (Table 2). The questionnaires were in their national languages and also provided space for the students to give supplementary comments.Annemarie Baaij.indd 59 28-06-2023 12:26