Factors affecting the clinical performance among Pakistani dental students: A cross sectional study

Objective: To identify the factors affecting clinical performance among dental students and to help
addressing these problems. Material and Methods: A cross-sectional study in which students of third and
final year of dentistry participated. Data was collected from June 2022 till September 2022. Data was collected
from the third and final year dental students of both public and private dental colleges within the Pakistan
using a purposive sampling technique. Results: A total of 372 dental students participated in this study.
Thirty eight (31.9%) students belonged to third year while 81 (68.1%) were final year students from
government college. For the private dental college, 121 (47.8%) were third year students while 132 (52.2%)
were final year students. Majority of the participants were males from both the colleges. 42.9% of government
dental students and 26.5% of private dental students agreed on well-preparedness of clinical instructors. 5.5%
from private and 21.0% from government dental colleges agreed that adequate personal protective equipment
were present in clinical departments. Conclusion: From this study, it is concluded that there should be focus
more focus on the factors to enhance clinical skills, supervision of students in clinical practice to help
addressing the problems faced during learning and performance in a clinical environment, to produce selfconfident, motivated, knowledgeable, skillful and a professional dental graduates.