Proposing a communication module to enhance dental students' attitudes towards people with dementia: Phase 1 of a curriculum revision study

The number of mentally altered patients a dentist meets in practice is increasing and interaction with them can be very challenging. As a baseline for an interventional study, we want to assess the attitude of dental students and identify areas of improvement in patient communication. This work comp...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:European journal of dental education 2024-02, Vol.28 (1), p.251-258
Main Authors: Gurtmann, Sonja, Schwahn, Christian, Krüger, Markus, Janowitz, Deborah, Pilz, Kristin, Biffar, Reiner, Grabe, Hans-J, Söhnel, Andreas
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aged
Attitude of Health Personnel
Attitudes
Communication
Curriculum
Dementia
Dementia disorders
Dental schools
Dentistry
Education, Dental
Factor analysis
Humans
Medical education
Nursing
Students
Students, Dental
Surveys and Questionnaires
Citations: Items that this one cites
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The number of mentally altered patients a dentist meets in practice is increasing and interaction with them can be very challenging. As a baseline for an interventional study, we want to assess the attitude of dental students and identify areas of improvement in patient communication. This work compares the attitude of dental students towards people suffering from dementia to the attitudes of trained medical caregivers and the general population. Our aim is to use the results to assess the need for training in communicating with mentally altered patients. Fourth-year dental students attended two lectures on dementia given by a psychiatrist as part of the geriatric dentistry lecture and were questioned afterwards using the Dementia Attitude Scale. In 2016 and 2017, 73 students at the University of Greifswald were interviewed. The response rate was 84%. Using a factor analysis, the Dementia Attitude Scale's validated questions were interpreted and compared with data from nursing staff from Switzerland and the USA. The factor analysis of the data showed the same two-factor loadings as the comparative groups, and that dental students' attitude is more comparable to the general population than to medically trained nursing staff. Given the results, we conclude that the implementation of a communication module can serve in improving the attitude of dental students towards patients with dementia.
ISSN:1396-5883
1600-0579
DOI:10.1111/eje.12942