Patient-Centred Care in Dentistry: Definitions and Models - Commentary

Patient-centred care is an important approach that is currently being adopted, to varying degrees of success, in a number of healthcare settings, particularly in family medicine and nursing. However, patient-centred care is relatively understudied in dentistry. This commentary aims to provide a general overview of patient-centred care studies conducted in dentistry, of how the approach is defined in this setting, and of the different models that have aimed to operationalize the concept. This concept is particularly relevant to dental education as current guidelines for dentists encourage and require them to adopt different dimensions of this approach. In addition to policies and guidelines, there is evidence that suggests that the adoption of patient-centred care would result in positive outcomes.

Practice with confidence: Analyzing confidence level of final year dental students from four Saudi dental colleges in Riyadh

Objective

To investigate the confidence level of final year dental students in Riyadh.

Materials

Cross-sectional study was conducted at four dental colleges in Riyadh (N = 312, 220 and 70,5% responded). Oneway ANOVA and post hoc Tukey-Kramer was used.

Results

The greatest self-reported confidence scores were for pit fissure sealent (4.6(0.7)). Whereas, students reported least confidence in conducting surgical extractions (2.7 (1.2)). Females were found more confident in conducting preventive resin restorations, oral hygiene instructions, and rubber dam placement as compared to male who were more confident in surgical extraction, copy dentures, veneer preparation and managing orthodontic emergencies.

Conclusion

All students were confident in performing essential dental procedures however higher confidence was observed in performing simple procedures compared to more complex ones.

Satisfaction of optional pairing in clinical dental training

PURPOSE

The aim of this study was to investigate the perceived satisfaction of optional pairing in undergraduate clinical dental training of fourth- and fifth-year dental students and newly graduated intern dentists in the subject of conservative dentistry and endodontics.

METHODS

Data were collected through a paper-based 2-part questionnaire. The first part was made of 3 questions; gender, undergraduate dental year, and grade point average (GPA). The second part involved 9 questions about assistant student-year level preference, satisfaction of optional pairing and main advantages and disadvantages of pairing. Statistical analysis was performed using descriptive statistics and Chi-square test to investigate any statistically significant differences.

RESULTS

A total of 92.4% were satisfied with optional clinical pairing. Satisfied respondents reported most prevalent advantages were speeding things up (88.5%) and helping in transferring instruments and materials (85.6%). Unsatisfied respondents reported the most prevalent disadvantages were like to work independently (56.8%) and the assistant was not always cooperative (32.4%). Students with low grade point averages (GPAs) felt incompetent to work in pairs compared with high GPA students (P = 0.001). Only 32.4% of participants thought that the assistant student should be given an evaluation mark. About 75% of respondents reported that clinical pairing improved their diagnostic skills and treatment planning.

CONCLUSIONS

Optional pairing in clinical dental training had a high satisfaction percentage. Allowing students to choose their own assistants may reduce pairing disadvantages and enhance its advantages. Students may gain a mentoring benefit from being encouraged to optionally pair with similar or higher study-year students.