A survey of the dental radiology course designed for dentist continuing education in Taiwan

Feng-Chou Cheng; Li-Hua Tang; Kou-Jung Lee; Yueh-Tuan Lin; Fu-Hsien Yang; Mu-Hsiung Chen; Chun-Pin Chiang

doi:10.1016/j.jds.2023.05.004

A survey of the dental radiology course designed for dentist continuing education in Taiwan

J Dent Sci. 2023 Jul;18(3):1354-1360. doi: 10.1016/j.jds.2023.05.004. Epub 2023 May 14.

Authors

Feng-Chou Cheng^{1

2

3}, Li-Hua Tang⁴, Kou-Jung Lee⁵, Yueh-Tuan Lin⁶, Fu-Hsien Yang⁷, Mu-Hsiung Chen⁶, Chun-Pin Chiang^{6

8

9

10}

Affiliations

¹ Chia-Te Dental Clinic, New Taipei City, Taiwan.
² School of Life Science, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan.
³ Science Education Center, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan.
⁴ Department of Nuclear Medicine, National Taiwan University Hospital, College of Medicine, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan.
⁵ Hong-Yuan Dental Clinic, Chiayi County, Taiwan.
⁶ Department of Dentistry, National Taiwan University Hospital, College of Medicine, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan.
⁷ Department of Biomedical Engineering, National Taiwan University Hospital, College of Medicine, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan.
⁸ Graduate Institute of Clinical Dentistry, School of Dentistry, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan.
⁹ Graduate Institute of Oral Biology, School of Dentistry, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan.
¹⁰ Department of Dentistry, Hualien Tzu Chi Hospital, Buddhist Tzu Chi Medical Foundation, Hualien, Taiwan.

Abstract

Background/purpose: In Taiwan, dental radiology has a long history of development. However, there are very few dental radiology curricula in Taiwan's dental education system. This study explored preliminarily the dental radiology course designed for dentist continuing education in Taiwan.

Materials and methods: This study used the method of dental radiology education survey by questionnaire to evaluate participating dentists' learning outcomes by assessing their perceptions of the dental radiology course.

Results: In this study, 117 participating dentists filled out the questionnaires completely after the class of dentist continuing education. The results showed that most of participating dentists agreed that dental radiology courses were rare in dental school curriculum and dentist continuing education. Moreover, most of participating dentists found this course to be helpful in raising their basic knowledge and skill about dental radiology, their attitude towards dental radiology, and their interest in further learning of dental radiology. They were satisfied with the course. The degree of agreement for each question was high, and all the mean scores for each question were between 4.53 and 4.77. The numbers (rates) of respondents who answered as agree were between 105 and 113 (between 89.74% and 96.58%).

Conclusion: The dental radiology course contributed to an increase in dentists' basic knowledge and skill about dental radiology and their awareness and understanding of the importance of dental radiology. Considering the effectiveness of the dental radiology course on dentists' basic knowledge/skill and attitude of dental radiology, this model shows promise for further use in dentist continuing education.

Keywords: Dental radiology; Dentist continuing education; Dentists.