PERCEPTION OF DENTISTRY AS A CAREER AMONG UNDERGRADUATE DENTAL STUDENTS - A QUESTIONNAIRE SURVEY

Abstract

Background:

Dentists occupy an important position in society as professional health care workers. Motives for selecting a career are complex, and a choice of dentistry as a career is not any exception. Motivations for selecting dentistry are studied in many countries. A range of reasons has been mentioned including status and security, the character of occupation, patient care and dealing with people.

Aim: to study the Perception of dentistry as a career among dental students.

Materials and methods:

The sample size used for the study was 105. A self structured questionnaire was prepared and uploaded in Google forms. A questionnaire in Google forms was circulated among the sample study population and at the end of the survey, all the data were collected and the data was analysed by using the software IBM SPSS. Descriptive statistics were expressed by means of number, frequency, and percentage. Chi-square test was done to find the association between variables.

Result:

The present study reported that 31% of females reported their educational experience as poor and 62% of males reported as good. 31% of females consider themselves less creative and 62% of males consider themselves good.

Conclusion:The results presented here are the factors involved in the choice of dentistry as an occupation by dental students in india. This study points to the fact that there is a need  for reviewing the process of admission for the students to dentistry to improve the level of satisfaction.