Study motivations, specialty preferences, and empathy of dental students in a Nigerian university.

Introduction: dental training aims to produce committed dentists who are professional and empathetic in providing patient-centered oral healthcare and improved quality of life. This study aimed to assess the motives of dental students to study dentistry, their specialty preferences, and their empathy scores by motives and specialty preference. Methods: this cross-sectional study utilized a self-administered questionnaire designed to assess the empathy measured by the Jefferson Scale of Empathy-Health Professions Student version, motives to study dentistry, dental specialty preferences among students of a dental school in Nigeria. Differences in mean empathy across gender, motives to study dentistry, and specialty preferences were analysed with t-test and ANOVA. P-values of <0.05 were considered significant. Results: a total of 211 students participated fully in the study with a mean age of 21.19 years ± 2.43 and 140 (66.4%) females. Personal interest (27.0%) and failure of admission to other undergraduate programmes (20.9%) were the top two motives for studying dentistry. Oral and maxillofacial surgery (OMFS) was the most preferred specialty (44.1%) and community dentistry and periodontology were the least preferred (2.8%) respectively. The total mean empathy score was 104.06 ± 19.1. The highest empathy score for motivation was for high income from dentistry (112.33 ± 13.34). The participants who preferred paediatric dentistry had the highest empathy score (108.73 ± 13.68). Conclusion: knowledge of the empathy levels, the motivation for studying dentistry, and preferences for particular specialties may encourage trainers to ensure the development of a positive attitude among dental students that is professional and empathetic.

Oral health related quality of life among HIV positive patients attending two HIV outpatient clinics in Nigeria - a cross sectional study.

BACKGROUND: The human immunodeficiency virus infection remains a devastating disease of public health importance. OBJECTIVES: To assess the association between oral health and quality of life and the factors affecting the oral health related quality of life among HIV positive patients in Nigeria. METHODS: This was a cross sectional study of HIV positive patients attending two HIV outpatient clinics in Nigeria. Impact of oral health on quality of life was assessed using the OHIP-14. Oral health status was assessed by the DMFT and Simplified OHI indices. Level of significance was set at p< 0.05. RESULTS: Three hundred and fifty-two patients were seen, 64.2% being females. Prevalence of impact was 8.5%; and the mean OHIP scores was 8.05±9.54. Highest impact was "painful aching" 67(19.1%) with the domain of physical pain scoring the highest mean impact of 2.32. Most patients (88.6%) were on HAART. Following logistic regression, after controlling for potential confounders, independent factors associated with poor OHRQoL were perceived need for dental treatment, HAART use, and higher DMFT (p<0.05). CONCLUSION: The domain of physical pain had the highest impact, while perceived need for dental treatment, HAART use and higher caries index were contributory to poor OHRQoL.