Attitude toward Public Health Dentistry as a career among dental students in Odisha: A Cross-sectional study.
BACKGROUND
Knowledge of dental students' expectations of their profession as well as their attitudes to study a particular specialty of dentistry is of great importance. These attitudes and expectations make studying dentistry meaningful to dental students and society and understanding these factors facilitate workforce planning in the dental sector The aim of the study was to assess the attitude of dental students towards considering Public Health Dentistry as their future career.


METHODS
A questionnaire-based, cross-sectional survey was conducted, which included the 3rdyear, 4thfourth year and dental interns studying in the State of Odisha. It consisted of 27 questions that were graded on 5-point Likert scale. The responses for the attitude questions toward selecting Public Health Dentistry for postgraduation were categorized into three factors, which are a negative attitude (includes score 0-21), neutral attitude (score 22-44), and positive attitude (score 45-64). Differences between groups were examined using Chi-square test for proportions. The level of statistical significance was set atP< 0.05.


RESULTS
Among 886 respondents, 302 (34.08%) were males and 584 (65.91%) were females. One-third (33.52%) of them had a positive attitude toward selecting public health dentistry as their future career, and nearly two-third of them (58.23%) had neutral attitude, with very few students having a negative attitude (8.23%) toward the specialty for pursuing postgraduation.


CONCLUSIONS
Respondents had a considerable amount of interest in pursuing postgraduation in this specialty. Efforts should be intensified, both by the dental council and by the dental colleges, to develop this specialty, keeping in mind the increasing attitude of dental undergraduates toward it.
Department of Public Health Dentistry, Institute of Dental Sciences, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India.
Nupur
N
Sharma
Department of Public Health Dentistry, Rungta College of Dental Sciences and Research, Bhilai, Chhattisgarh, India.
Kittu
K
Jain
Department of Public Health Dentistry, Institute of Dental Sciences, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India.
Soumik
S
Kabasi
Attitude; Public Health Dentistry; career choice; dental students