Assessment of Self Perception of Competencies among a Group of Dental interns in Pondicherry, India

Jananni Muthu; Sivaramakrishnan Muthanandam; K R Sethuraman; K A Narayan; N Ananthakrishnan; B V Adkoli

doi:10.4103/jehp.jehp_53_19

Assessment of Self Perception of Competencies among a Group of Dental interns in Pondicherry, India

J Educ Health Promot. 2019 Dec 31:8:255. doi: 10.4103/jehp.jehp_53_19. eCollection 2019.

Authors

Jananni Muthu¹, Sivaramakrishnan Muthanandam², K R Sethuraman³, K A Narayan⁴, N Ananthakrishnan⁵, B V Adkoli⁶

Affiliations

¹ Department of Periodontology, Indira Gandhi Institute of Dental Sciences, Sri Balaji Vidyapeeth (SBV), Deemed to be University, Puducherry, India.
² Department of Oral Pathology & Microbiology, Indira Gandhi Institute of Dental Sciences, Sri Balaji Vidyapeeth (SBV), Deemed to be University, Puducherry, India.
³ Dean, Academics, AIMST University, Malaysia.
⁴ Department of Community Medicine, Mahatma Gandhi Medical College & Research Center, Puducherry, India.
⁵ Department of General Medicine, Mahatma Gandhi Medical College & Research Center, Puducherry, India.
⁶ Center for Health Professions Education, Sri Balaji Vidyapeeth (SBV), Deemed to be University, Puducherry, India.

Abstract

Context: The general dentist must not only have a broad biomedical and clinical education but also be able to demonstrate professional and ethical behavior as well as effective communication and interpersonal skills. In addition he or she must have the ability to evaluate and utilize emerging technologies, continuing professional development opportunities, and problem-solving and critical thinking skills to effectively address current and future issues in health care. But the extent to which the core competencies are taught and the students' level of proficiency in these competencies in Indian scenario is to be explored at large.

Aims: The present study aims at assessing the self-perceived level of competencies and their importance for future practice and the extent to which the competencies are taught in the curriculum among interns of dental college in Pondicherry, India.

Settings and design: The cross-sectional observational study was conducted among dental interns of Indira Gandhi Institute of Dental Sciences, Pondicherry.

Subjects and methods: A total of 72 interns participated in the study. A short version of the Freiburg Questionnaire to Assess Competencies in Medicine" was used in this study. Questionnaire has three sections with same set of questions, which the student had to rate: (i) To what extent do you have the following competencies at your disposal? (ii) To what extent will your future job require the following competencies? and (iii) To what extent is competencies taught to you? After the results were obtained a focused group discussion with the responders was done. Focused group discussion consisted of open questions to the groups in all the four domains and the responses of the students were scribed.

Results: In all four domains, self-perceived level of competency was not satisfactory. However, all students stated that the competencies were highly relevant for their future practice. Despite this, most of the competencies are not taught to necessary extent in the curriculum. The results of the present survey revealed that the participating students perceived deficiencies in all domains of competencies.

Conclusions: These results indicate that the core competencies are still barely integrated into dental curricula and that further research in this field is needed.

Keywords: Communication and interpersonal skills; Freiberg Competencies Questionnaire; competency-based education; dental students; professional attitudes; self-perception.