MOTIVATIONS FOR STUDYING DENTISTRY AND DENTAL COLLEGE PREFERENCE AMONG RAS AL KHAIMAH MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES UNIVERSITY ( RAKCODS ) STUDENTS
and motivations towards prospective professions . Dentistry is a well-respected and reputable profession in societies all over the world . Several factors may govern or modulate the decision of pursuing this field . Traditionally , several factors have been recognized that may influence one ’ s decision to choose dentistry as a future career including oral health promotion , assisting and working in societies , availability and ease of employment , financial security , prestige , provision of enough time off for family life , desire to work in health care and making a good income 2-6 . Interestingly , variation in social background , race , gender and country have been found to influence career selection as well 7-10 . In the United States of America for example , it has been reported that African-American students were more inclined to serve the community , while the Caucasian-American students ’ motivation to graduate as a dentist was related to fulfilling family commitments 11 . In a study by Khami and his colleagues 12 , social status and security were ranked amongst the highest by the students . Many students consider the dental profession as prestigious . In a study involving more than 400 students prestige topped the other factors scoring 44.4 % and helping other people came second : 43.6 % 13 . A substantial percentage of people in many communities cannot afford dental treatment . Government clinics are usually congested and limited to emergency and basic dental services . Thus , many authors explored altruism and empathy towards the population ’ s oral health status as motives among the students , however , many reports failed to show a great impact of these factors on the choice of a dental career , particularly among male students . Several publications have demonstrated that gender differences are some of the driving forces of the career . Females appeared to be more motivated to promote oral health and care than males 9 , 14 . In a piece of research involving four dental colleges in South Africa , Lallo and his group 15 , found racial differences as one of the motivations amongst the surveyed students , mainly in terms of finance , post-graduation practice , community services and financial debts . Freire and colleagues 6 , in a cross-sectional study used a self-administered questionnaire to investigate ambitions and motives to choose a dental career of all first-year students enrolled in the 1993 – 95 and 2006 – 08 periods in one of the Brazilian dental . The report found significant differences in the freshmen ’ s motivations and various professional perspectives overtime . The study revealed diverse personal views over the influencing factors in pursuing a dental career among students .
2 . Aim of the study The objectives of this study were to investigate the driving motives and influential factors of RAKCODS students towards choosing dentistry as their future career , and whether there were any specific reasons for preferring RAKCODS over other dental colleges in UAE .
3 . Methods The research proposal was approved by the research and ethics committee of RAKMHSU , reference number ( RAKMHSU-REC-1-2015-F-D ). A selfadministered questionnaire with three sections ( A , B and C ) was constructed using previously reports published in the literature . The first section ( A ) covered demographic information including age , gender , nationality and high school curriculum . The second part ( B ) included 19 items inquiring about the potential influential factors in choosing a dental career . The third section ( C ) consisted of six questions probing the reasons for preferring RAKCODS as a college to pursue a dental career . Responses on students ’ motivation were collected using threepoint ordinal scales “ important , less important , not important ”. A total of 164 registered students were included in the survey . They were students who had just finished their first academic year 2013-2014 and newly admitted students for the academic year 2014-2015 . The questionnaire was pretested on 40 students . A correction of ambiguity was performed on all items and prepared for the online survey . The students were approached via their university email ID and a message was sent to the respective students explaining the online questionnaire , its voluntary nature , the need for honesty in answering the questions and the need for acceptance to participate in the research . A clear statement was written in the message denoting that a response to the questionnaire would be considered as their consent . The online-link to the questionnaire was emailed to the respective academic year students and activated for three weeks . Three reminder emails were sent to the students with a one week interval requesting completion of the questionnaire . The survey allows only one answer to be selected for each variable and the system only accepts the fully answered questionnaires . By the end of the third week the questionnaire link was deactivated and the data were saved as an Excel file .
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