Comparison of Prosthodontic Curriculum in Iran with American and Canadian Dental Faculties

Abstract

Background and Aim: Dental education includes theoretical and practical educational activities for the study of dental topics and dental skills in dental schools. New dental education programs should educate graduates who can work in a variety of fields, which requires a balanced and accurate educational approach. Considering that there has not been a study to compare the prosthodontic course in Iran with other countries of the world, a comparison between their curriculum can help to improve the educational program of the universities. Materials and Methods: This is a descriptive-analytic study. To collect data, firstly, in a randomized way, three different countries, three educational faculties of dental prosthodontics course curriculum examination were selected and selected. The data were reported by descriptive methods (abundance, percentage of frequency) and for comparing the groups, Chi-square test was used. The variables studied included the duration of the study period, the dental education model, the general educational curriculum, the educational goals, and the educational methods. Data were analyzed by SPSS version 18 software. The significance level of study was P <0.05. Results: The results of this study showed that there is no significant difference between the two countries of Iran and the United States, as well as Iran and Canada regarding the importance of practical lessons (P> 0.05). However, there is a significant statistical difference between the two countries in Canada and the United States. (P <0.05). Also, the assessment of the duration of the courses in the three different countries showed a significant difference between the countries of the United States and Iran, as well as between the Canada and the United States (P <0.05), but there was no significant statistical difference between the countries of Iran and Canada (P> 0.05) . Conclusion: The Iranian educational program in the field of prosthodontics is important in terms of the importance of intermediate clinical courses between the educational curriculum programs of American and Canadian colleges. Qualitative studies also show that there is a difference in the nature of the programs between the three countries, and the increasing importance of interdisciplinary programs and the increase of teaching hours by assistants can help to improve the curriculum of the Iranian curriculum.