[Students' impressions on clinical applications of basic science courses [2003-5]]

ABSTRACT

Basic science courses have long been the subject of debate for its usefulness among many clinicians. This investigation was conducted over the period of 2003 to 2005 in order to evaluate the views of graduating dental students on the quality, quantity and clinical applications of basic science courses on their daily clinical practice. A group of 175 final year dental students [both Male and Female] were asked to participate in this cross sectional investigation. A questionnaire was used to collect both qualitative and quantitative information about different basic science materials that were thought to them. Participants were dental students of Tehran, Shahed and Shaheed Beheshti Universities, the three major dental schools located in Tehran, the capital city. Mann-Whitney as well as Kruskal Wallis tests were used for data analysis. Based on the collected information, most of the students had a common belief that courses like [Human Anatomy], [General Pathology] and [Human Physiology] had the greatest influence in their daily practice while [Biochemistry], [Biophysics] and [Genetics] had contributed the least. They also thought that the two courses of [Biochemistry] and [Microbiology] have been the focus of too much attention, while more emphasis needed for [Biostatistics], [Human Anatomy], [Genetics] and [Psychology] courses by the school curriculum committee and the teaching staff. Analysis of data revealed significant group differences between Shaheed Beheshti dental students and others in relation to importance of [Anatomy] [Psychology] and [Biochemistry] courses [P=0.005]. The overall satisfaction was observed among all students of the three dental schools for[Microbiology], [Pathology], [Public Health], [Physiology], and [Biophysics] courses to some extent. There seem to be a slight difference in the amount of value and emphasis put forward by different schools on the basic science courses offered to dental students