ABSTRACT
In order to examine the attitudes of third-year dental students towards oriental medicine before and after lecture courses, and compare their attitudes with those of medical students, self-administered questionnaires were given to Aichi-Gakuin University School of Dentistry students (DS), and Kinki University School of Medicine students (MS). Pre-course,105 DS and 68 MS provided valid answers, while 104 DS provided valid answers post-course. Pre-course, 80.9% of DS thought oriental medicine would be important in the future, and 72.4% wanted to learn it. Also pre-course, 7.6% of DS had knowledge of oriental medicine, 55.2% were interested in oriental medicine, and 54.3% wanted to introduce oriental medicine into their clinical practice in the future. These last percentages increased after the lecture courses to 50.0%, 76.9% and 77.9%, respectively. With pre-course MS, on the other hand : 64.7% were interested in oriental medicine ; 58.8% thought it would be important in the future ; 51.5% wanted to introduce it in their clinical practice ; and 70.6% wanted to learn it.These results show that both dental and medical students had similar attitudes toward oriental medicine, and that dental students need an oriental medicine education equivalent to that of medical students.