• Orawan Charatkulangkun
• Chanin Taechaprasertwittaya

Objective The purpose of this study was to compare clinical systems of undergraduate periodontal clinic between block-system and year-course module, concerning clinical management, patient compliance, student competencies and learning and teaching quality.

Materials and Methods Questionnaires consisting of general information, clinical management, patient compliance, student competencies and learning and teaching quality were distributed to 195 dental students and a total of 175 were returned. Eight-seven dental students with the first two-digit student ID no. of 41 used block-system module while 88 dental students with the first two-digit student ID No. of 42 used year-course module for undergraduate periodontal clinic in the fifth academic year. Data was collected and analyzed using SPSS-PC software package.

Results No statistically significant difference was found in all topics between both groups except for the topic of being able to complete hygienic phase of treatment (p=0.041), students reserves the dental units in advance in order to choose the supervisors (p=0.003), inability to sterile the instruments before use (p=0.003) and implementation the preclinical knowledge to clinical work (p=0.01).

Conclusion Pros and Cons from open-ended questionnaires of both systems were listed as follow. Block-system module served the students to treat the patients continuously, simply manage the schedule and be able to concentrate the clinical work. However, only short clinical period of 12-13 weeks made the comprehensive patient care could not be achieved and also made the students were stressful. Facing different problems in different periods was an unequal situation to deal with for each block students in this module. While the students using year-course module were able to treat the patients in multidisciplinary approach as total patient care and follow up for maintenance recall. The students could make their decision and manage their own schedule were another advantageous of year-course module. Nevertheless, few periods of treatment per week in year-course module resulted in more difficult schedule arrangement and subsequently made the students worked stressfully. Unequal in amount of periods of treatment even the same clinical hours was also comment in this module. As been shown, the result of this study may be used as a guideline for establishing clinical learning and teaching system in undergraduate periodontal clinic and serve as baseline data for all involving staffs to better understand the system and the students as well.

(CU Dent J 2004;27:99-108)