The Impact of Integrating Oral Health Education into a Medical Curriculum

OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to evaluate our pilot program incorporating oral health education into the medical curriculum by evaluating students' perspectives on the oral health curriculum. SUBJECTS AND METHODS Two hundred second-year students were asked to fill in a presession survey online regarding their familiarity with basic oral health concepts and their comfort level with performing oral examinations, and a postsession survey on paper that repeated the presession questions and added questions on the effectiveness of the session. RESULTS Of the 200 students, 164 (82%) participated in the surveys. The pre- and postsurvey results showed that the session helped students become more comfortable with performing oral examinations and recognizing risks for periodontal disease, with an increase from 40 (27%) to 119 (82%) and 51 (35%) to 124 (86%), respectively. CONCLUSION In this study, the oral health education session contributed to an increase in student awareness and understanding of oral health. Considering the reported effectiveness of the interactive session on student comfort with performing a basic clinical examination, this model shows promise for further use in other institutions.