Page 80 - Demo

Chapter 578At the end of their undergraduate dental training, a certain level of competence is assured, but the level of self-efficacy varies amongst students (Baaij et al. 2020). Their self-efficacy may increase with performing root canal treatments on patients during undergraduate training, but it also may decrease if those root canal treatments are difficult (Baaij et al. 2020). Novice dentists may face root canal treatments of various levels of difficulty in their practices, and the conditions under which the tasks are to be performed may be different from those in dental school. Besides, the novice dentist may be influenced by their colleagues. Other dentists might function – deliberately or unconsciously – as role models for the novice dentist and hence persuasion or modelling might occur, which can influence their self-efficacy (Gist & Mitchell 1992). Another factor that can influence self-efficacy is the normative feedback that the novice dentist may receive from various sources (Gist & Mitchell 1992, Wulf et al. 2010). Self-efficacy may thus change after graduation. A change in self-efficacy may lead to a change in performance, and this may result in ongoing positive professional development, however, it may also result in an exacerbation cycle that may be difficult to reverse (Bandura & Schunk 1981, Gist & Mitchell 1992). The aim of the present study was to understand whether the self-efficacy of novice dentists in Endodontics changes within the first year following their graduations from Aarhus University (AU), Denmark or from the Academic Centre for Dentistry Amsterdam (ACTA), the Netherlands, and to reveal factors related to a possible change.Materials and methods The research protocol of this study was independently reviewed and approved by the ethics committee of ACTA under the reference number 2017014. The present study is a follow-up to a previous study on the self-efficacy of undergraduate dental students from AU or ACTA (Baaij et al. 2020). The students who participated in that study were contacted 1 year following their graduations, and were invited to participate in this follow-up study. Participants gave informed consent. Participation comprised filling out a questionnaire that contained the Endodontic General Self-Efficacy Scale (Baaij & Özok 2018, Baaij et al. 2020) and additional questions on their experience in Endodontics after graduation, their work environment, their referral behaviour and the postgraduation education Annemarie Baaij.indd 78 28-06-2023 12:26