Poster Sessions

Background: Self-assessment based on benchmarked professional standards is an excellent tool to assist in improving the dental curriculum. Areas of strength and weaknesses can be identified. It can also act as a baseline standard when significant changes are introduced to the dental curriculum. Aim: The aims of this prospective cross-sectional study were two- folds: (i) to investigate self-assessed confidence of final year dental undergraduates in paediatric dentistry at University of Malaya, (ii) to gather baseline level of self-confidence for the old dental curriculum. Design: 65 undergraduates completed anonymised questionnaires which was formulated based on expected professional competen- cies in three domains namely clinical skills, patient management, and professional development and clinical governance. Visual analogue score (VAS) represented by a 10 cm line with score ‘0’ no confidence at all and ‘10’ complete confidence was used to mea- sure the level of confidence. Results: The overall analysis of self-assessed confidence was very positive with median VAS ≥5 cm in; clinical skills, 7.66 ` 1.31 cm (range = 2.41–9.97 cm: n = 62; 95.4%), patient management 7.73 ` 1.27 cm (range = 5.09–9.95 cm: n = 64; 100.0%) and professional development and clinical governance, 8.13 ` 1.21 cm (range = 5.22–10.00 cm: n = 64; 100.0%). High confidence was reported for routine dental care (fillings and pre- ventive care) while lower confidence reported for basic life sup- port (median VAS = 5.65 cm) and pulp therapy for immature permanent teeth (median VAS = 5.95 cm). Conclusions: The final year dental undergraduate students of Uni- versity of Malaya appear to have good overall self-assessed confi- dence in core areas in paediatric dentistry and similar areas of low confidence was reported by undergraduates at other dental schools