Recognition of malocclusion: An education outcomes assessment

The purpose of this study was to assess the outcome of predoctoral orthodon tic dental education in an American dental school. A test was used that mea sured the clinical abilities of dental students in the diagnosis of maloccl usion in children, as well as their didactic abilities in answering select questions from recent national board examinations in orthodontics. The reco rds of 7 children with different types of malocclusion were selected from t he practice of a board-certified orthodontist, These cases were presented t o dental students who were asked to make diagnoses and recommendations for treatment. The results of the didactic and clinical tests were used to asse ss the outcome of the predoctoral dental curriculum in imparting orthodonti c knowledge to future general dentists. Didactic knowledge increased over t he 4 years of dental education. First year students answered 30% of the que stions correctly, whereas fourth year students answered 59% correctly. The relationship between clinical diagnostic skills and dental education, howev er, was not as strong. The fourth year students answered 70% of questions c oncerning the 7 cases correctly, These results indicate that fourth year de ntal students demonstrated only slight improvement compared with first year students, who answered 65% of the questions correctly. Thus, this study in dicated that orthodontic diagnostic skills, as measured by the clinical tes t used, did not improve substantially during 4 years of undergraduate denta l education.