Perceived confidence of dental students and new graduates in performing tooth extractions—An exploratory study

Abstract

Introduction The ability to perform uncomplicated tooth extractions is a core clinical skill in undergraduate dental education. The aim of this study was to evaluate pre-extraction assessment skills of dental students and interns and explore their self-perceived confidence in performing these tooth extractions.

Materials and Methods A cross-sectional survey investigated the self-perceived confidence to perform the extraction for a set of eight expert-rated cases. The participants were dental students at three different stages, that is, in Years 4 and 5 of the Bachelor of Dental Surgery (BDS) programme and interns. The participants were asked to rate the difficulty level of each of the eight tooth extraction cases. The self-perceived confidence of the participants to perform extraction of each was also explored. Finally, the participants were asked to identify the main reason for the perceived lack of confidence.

Results A total of 199 responded to the survey, yielding a response rate of 94.7%. The effect of grade of extraction (the expert rating of cases) and stage of education on difficulty ratings was assessed using a mixed three stage of education × 4-grade ANOVA, with response (Difficult = 1, Easy = 0) as the dependent variable. The results showed that there was a correlation between the stage of education and grade of extraction and affected the self-perceived confidence of the participants. Gender showed a significant impact with females categorizing significantly more cases as difficult. A three-way contingency table (counts of each confidence-level response by stage of education by expert rating of cases) suggests a statistically significant association between the three factors. Most participants identified limited clinical exposure as the main reason for their perceived lack of confidence.

Conclusion The findings of this study show that a majority of the participants were able to recognize tooth extraction cases which were beyond the scope of their training stage with females reporting a lower confidence. Increased clinical exposure to a wider range of tooth extraction cases with varying levels of difficulty may contribute to improving the self-confidence of undergraduate dental students and interns.