Identification of semester-specific teaching contents for dental ethics: development, testing and validation of a questionnaire

• Published in: BMC medical education 2021-02, Vol.21 (1), p.109-109, Article 109
• Main Authors: Goetz, Katja, Gutermuth, Ann-Christine, Wenz, Hans-Jürgen, Groß, Dominik, Hertrampf, Katrin
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Consent; Curricula; Curriculum; Dental education; Dental ethics; Dental schools; Dentistry; Documentation; Ethics; Ethics, Medical; Evaluation; Humanities; Humans; Interviews; Learning; Licenses; Medical education; Medical ethics; Medicine; Methods; Outcomes of Education; Psychometrics; Questionnaire; Questionnaires; Sociodemographics; Students; Study and teaching; Surveys and Questionnaires; Teaching; Teaching Methods; Validation; Working groups
• ISSN: 1472-6920; 1472-6920
• DOI: 10.1186/s12909-021-02541-x

Although medical ethics is an indispensable part of dental education, it has not played a relevant role in the dental curriculum thus far. This study is aimed at developing and validating a questionnaire that identifies semester-specific ethical issues, in order to develop longitudinal ethic modules. March 2018 a workshop on item generation was coordinated, using Delphi method; followed by a cognitive testing with students (2nd, 4th, 10th semesters, n = 12). A pilot test was carried out with students from different semesters (n = 60). The distribution of response frequencies and missing values were determined. The questionnaire used for validation consisted of three dimensions: ethical knowledge, dealing with ethical issues, expectations in terms of teaching. The psychometric examination was carried out by preclinical students (n = 105) and clinical semesters (n = 110) January 2019. After cognitive testing and piloting, some items were reformulated, so that a questionnaire with 127 items was used for validation. The individual dimensions were assigned to various factors with excellent to acceptable internal consistency (Cronbach's α 0.72-0.96). The questionnaire has an acceptable to excellent consistency and suggests that the different dimensions are conclusive. With this questionnaire, ethical issues in dentistry can be mapped and teaching contents identified.