A Clinical Field‐experience for Fourth‐year Dental Students†

Abstract

The enthusiasm of the writers of this report may stimulate comparable projects at other schools of dentistry

University-based initiatives towards better access to oral health care for rural and remote populations: A scoping review

“…Based on our scoping review results, we identified three categories of programs that have been implemented in various universities. The first category characterizes programs for the training and education of dental and allied health students and professionals [1, 3, 11, 24–67]; the second category describes programs for the education and training of rural and remote community members [68–73] and the third category represents programs on oral healthcare services in rural and remote areas [41, 42, 61–63, 68, 69, 73–92].…”

“…The platform for the second category of education and training programs for rural and remote community members included patient oral health education and rural school teachers’ training [68–71]. Lastly, the curriculum based platform for programs in the third category of oral health care services incorporated programs for providing and improving oral health care services and fulfilling the community’s oral health-related needs [41, 42, 61, 62, 68, 69, 74–79].…”

“…In the quantitative approach, instruments such as questionnaires (closed and open-ended, pre- and post-, anonymous, electronic online) [1, 3, 11, 25–27, 31, 33, 35, 36, 39, 46, 51, 52, 60, 64, 65, 73, 75, 76, 82, 84, 85], oral examinations [61, 62, 74], health and oral health-related indices [69], descriptive measurements [29, 30, 40, 43, 49, 54–58, 64, 65, 68, 70, 74, 77, 78, 81, 85–88], measurement of grades [37] and SWOT (strength, weakness, opportunities and threat) analyses [43] were used. Additionally, quantitative measurements, such as cost per patient, marginal cost and cost analysis [32, 41, 42, 79, 91, 92] were used to measure the cost-effectiveness of various programs. For qualitative measurement, tools, such as data documentation [63], interviews [28, 47, 50, 63, 80] and mixed approaches, questionnaires in combination with focus group discussions, interviews and open-ended questionnaires [34, 38,…”

“…These variables consisted of audited reports of services provided [30], cost-effectiveness [41, 42, 79, 81, 91, 92] and expenditures [32, 74].…”

“…Staff and supervisors noted positive attitudes and experiences, as well as satisfaction with and feasibility of these programs [3, 28, 34, 35, 38, 43, 46, 64, 84, 85]. Also, the programs demonstrated an increased enrollment, recruitment and retention of dental students in rural and remote areas [24, 29, 33, 36, 49, 54–58] and cost-effectiveness [41, 79, 81, 91, 92]. The clients/patients and caregivers of these training programs had experienced positive attitudes and acceptance of these initiatives [34].…”