Students’ Opinions About Treating Vulnerable Populations Immediately After Completing Community‐Based Clinical Experiences

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to analyze students' perceptions of comfort and anticipated willingness to treat selected special needs and traditionally underserved populations immediately upon completion of community-based clinical assignments. The sample consisted of University of Iowa senior dental students who completed a questionnaire that asked, in part, about student comfort with and future willingness to treat twelve vulnerable population groups. With student comfort and future willingness to treat each group as dependent variables, logistic models were developed to determine whether there were significant associations between dependent variables and gender, graduation year, and students' prior experience with these groups. Regression models indicate students' prior experience is most often associated with comfort in treating the associated population group. Likewise, experience and comfort add different dimensions to perceived future willingness to treat almost all of the twelve groups. Student gender, graduation year from dental school, and community assignments influence only a few of these targeted population groups. This study provides empirical evidence concerning students' perceptions about comfort with various vulnerable populations after completing their extramural rotations. Students were more comfortable treating certain population groups as well as more willing to consider including these groups in their future practices.

Attitudes of dental students towards patients with special healthcare needs: Can they be improved?

“…Thus, while the programme seemed to be able to help improve students' reactions to people with special healthcare needs, it proved unable to lower the barrier when it comes to treating them. This contrasts with results of previous studies with dental students as well as with practicing dentists which revealed a positive association between the exposure to education in the treatment of persons with special healthcare needs and the willingness to treat this clientele (see Introduction). A possible explanation for this discrepancy as well as for the increasing endorsement of specialised services may be sought in students' growing awareness that they were insufficiently prepared for treating this clientele.…”

“…In fact, several studies have shown that dentists who had undergone training in managing patients with special healthcare needs and who perceived their educational experiences as valuable felt more comfortable with treating this group of patients and treated more of these patients compared to those not exposed to this kind of training . Similarly, students who perceived themselves prepared for the treatment of patients with special needs showed greater future intention to treat this clientele …”

Service-learning's impact on dental students' attitude to community service

“…However, even for the White and non-White comparison in the costs scale, the p-value was 0.0139 which can be considered significant at a=0.05 level but would not be considered significant after Bonferroni adjustment for multiple comparisons. This finding is consistent with Holtzman et al's study and Kuthy et al's study which did not find significant differences in students' attitudes by age, gender, or volunteer experience (Holtzman & Seirawan, 2009) (Kuthy et al, 2007).…”

“…The authors suggested that access to oral health care for underserved patients could potentially be increased if dental students were more overtly educated about the importance of treating patients from all segments of society (Smith et al, 2006). year from dental school, and community assignments influence only a few of these targeted population groups (Kuthy, Heller, Riniker, McQuistan, & Qian, 2007). (details about this program was described in the earlier section of this chapter) is successful in stimulating reform in U.S. dental schools in terms of engaging more in community-based dental education, future students will develop greater awareness regarding critical access problems and the competencies required to effectively care for diverse populations (P. L. Davidson et al, 2007).…”

Predicting Dentist’s Willingness to Treat Hiv Infected Patients – A Questionnaire Based Study.

“…A viable clinical option is to integrate HIV-specific community-based clinical experiences into the dental curriculum. Kuthy et al [31],found this strategy to be helpful in increasing dental students' willingness to treat a variety of underserved populations, including people infected with HIV/AIDS.…”