American Journal of Oral Medicine and Radiology

MOTIVATIONS AND CAREER PREFERENCES AMONG FINALYEAR DENTAL STUDENTS: FOCUS ON INTEREST IN PAEDIATRIC DENTISTRY

Dr. Kartheek Votturu

Dental education, Career motivation, Paediatric dentistry, Student preferences, Gender differences

People have long wanted to explore the reasons behind studying dentistry because it helps uncover students’ psychology and satisfaction at work. You can find out what students expect as part of the profession. The study was designed to investigate what influenced the choice of dentistry and to understand what dental students planned for their futures, paying special attention to their interest in paediatric dentistry. A cross-sectional method was applied using a standard questionnaire that participants completed on their own. Participation was open to final-year students from several dental institutions. Those surveyed ranked several motivating factors and career choices from very unimportant (zero) to extremely important (five). Researchers carried out factor analysis to identify the most important themes related to their reasons for studying, hoping to become dentists, their opinions and what drew them to paediatric dental practice. Our survey was answered by 179 respondents (80.3%) out of the 223 approached. Why I chose dentistry is due to both the nature of the field, my intention to assist others, challenging ideas in dentistry, the art involved and the encouragement of my parents. There were 67.1% of participants interested in further education and 50.8% expressed an interest in specialising in paediatric dentistry. The interest is mainly influenced by my own positive interest in working with children and the support and advice of my close family. Only the level of interest in paediatric dentistry varied by gender, but the main reasons behind this interest were not much different. All in all, that gender has little impact on choosing this career might point to a lessening of the influence of traditional cultural elements in people’s career decisions.