Final Year Dental Students' Self-Assessed Confidence in General Dentistry.

BACKGROUND: Self-assessment is an important introspective skill that dental professionals will utilise throughout their professional career. Its value lies in its ability to help individuals identify areas of strengths and weakness, and subsequently seek further development of professional skills where needed. The aim of this study was to investigate the correlation between self-assessed confidence and the assessment grade of final-year dental students based on the professional attributes and competencies of newly qualified dentists outlined by the Australian Dental Council (ADC).

METHODS: Ethical approval was obtained prior to distribution of a questionnaire with 45 statements to final year dental students. The survey was created based on the learning outcomes of the ADC guidelines in the domains of 'scientific and clinical knowledge' and 'patient care'. Participants indicated their level of self-assessed confidence by marking 'X' on a visual analogue scale (VAS) from zero ('No Confidence') to 10 cm ('Very Confident'). The assessment grade was based on OSCE, viva voce, case report and written paper.

RESULTS: A total of 58 (71.6%) dental students participated in the survey. The reported self-assessed confidence over two domains were, under 'patient care': clinical information gathering 8.92±1.07cm (range=3.94-10.0cm: n=58; 100%), clinical diagnosis and management planning 8.26±1.34cm (range=0.50-9.95cm: n=55; 94.8%), clinical treatment and evaluation, 6.07±1.69cm (range=0-10.00cm: n=55; 94.8%), and 'scientific and clinical knowledge': 6.98±1.58cm (range=0-10.00cm: n=58; 100.0%). Within these categories, high confidence was reported for routine dental care (caries management and preventive care) while lower confidence was reported for the management of oral medicine and pathologies, dental emergencies, trauma, paediatric dentistry and prosthodontics. Correlation between the assessment grade and the overall score of self-assessed confidence is low positive (r=0.225) and not statistically significant (n=46; p=0.132, Spearman'sρ).

CONCLUSIONS: The final-year dental students appear to have good overall self-assessed confidence in core areas of general dentistry. However, confidence seems to be over-estimated when compared with summative assessment.