Dental Career: Motives and Perceptions of New and Graduating Students

Objectives: To compare the perception of dental career and motives for career choice between successful applicants for Dentistry and final year students at the University of Lagos, Nigeria.

Methods: Descriptive cross-sectional, self administered questionnaire based study carried out in March, 2006 on both successful applicants for Dentistry and final year dental students. The students were asked to state their degree of agreement with a set of statements assessing their possible motives for choosing Dentistry. These statements were grouped under four broad categories: employment factors, prior exposure to Dentistry/career counseling, nature of the job and course options at admission. They were also asked questions on their perception of different aspects of Dentistry. Data was analysed with the EPI INFO 6 software.

Results: Seventy-five students comprising 37 new and 38 final year students participated giving a response rate of about 90.4%. They were aged between 16 and 32 with a mean age of 22.2 +/-3.5 and had a M: F ratio of 1:1.2. Compared with only 23.7% of final year students, 64% of the new students chose Dentistry as their first choice for admission. First year students had more idealistic motives especially with regard to employment factors (p=0.000), although they had better exposure to counseling than the final year students. On perceptions, final year students significantly chose time control, lucrative nature as positive aspects of the career compared with new students who chose career opportunities and life saving as positive aspects of Dentistry(p=0.0002). Negative aspects identified by final years were occupational hazards and financial constraints compared with new students who identified stress and slow societal value placed on Dentistry.

Conclusion: Final year students had a more realistic view of Dentistry whereas the new students demonstrated a lack of knowledge of specifics about dentistry having more idealistic views.