Assessing Dental Students’ Attitudes and Knowledge about the Elderly

ABSTRACT

Objective: � The most rapidly growing segment of America's population are those 65+.� This is especially important for the health care industry which serves America's senior citizens.� Students who are entering the health care field need to be knowledgeable about the facts on aging to be adequately informed clinicians.� In this study, dental students completed a validated survey in order to evaluate their breadth of knowledge and attitudes about aging.� Both the international Advanced Standing (AS) students (foreign-trained dentists) and traditional Doctor of Dental Medicine (DMD) students participated, and the overall as well as class-specific results were compared.

Methods: � Both AS and DMD students from the academic years of 2008 � 2009 and 2009 � 2010 participated in the study.� They completed a widely utilized instrument, the Facts on Aging quiz prior to the first session of a course in Geriatrics and Gerontology.� The AS and DMD students quizzes were graded separately using scantron answer sheets.

Results: � The results from the Facts on Aging Quizzes show a significant difference (P < .001) between the performance of the AS and DMD students.� In both years, the DMD students were more knowledgeable about the facts on aging than the AS students.� Both groups of students performed better on the quiz in the academic year of 2008 � 2009.�� Both groups of students also performed significantly better when answering the test questions which were based on a physiological component of aging, compared to the other questions on emotional or sociological components.

Conclusions: �� The study findings show that the DMD students appear to be more knowledgeable more about aging and the elderly than the AS students.� Additionally, the study shows that dental students are more knowledgeable about physiological questions regarding aging in comparison to the emotional and sociological question.