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An Assessment of the Prescribing Skills of Undergraduate Dental Students in Malaysia
Author(s) -
Akram Ashfaq,
ZamZam Ruzanna,
Mohamad Nabishah B.,
Abdullah Dalia,
Meerah Subhan M.
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
journal of dental education
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.53
H-Index - 68
eISSN - 1930-7837
pISSN - 0022-0337
DOI - 10.1002/j.0022-0337.2012.76.11.tb05415.x
Subject(s) - medical prescription , medicine , inclusion (mineral) , dental education , family medicine , dentistry , test (biology) , psychology , nursing , social psychology , paleontology , biology
Most dental schools lack a module on prescription writing in pharmacology. This study assessed the prescription writing skills of a group of Malaysian dental students at the end of their undergraduate training program. A quantitative study of a two‐group posttest experiment was designed, and thirty‐seven fifth‐year (final‐year) dental students were divided into two groups (A [n=18] and B [n=19]). Group A received a didactic lecture on how to write a complete prescription, while Group B served as a control group. For prescription writing, three standardized dental scenarios with a diagnosis of irreversible pulpitis associated with a child and a pregnant woman and periapical pulpitis for an adult man were administered. Thus, a total of 111 prescriptions (Group A [n=54] and Group B [n=57]) were collected. Twelve elements in each prescription were assessed by frequency and a chi‐square test. Improvements in eight out of the twelve elements were observed in prescriptions written by students in Group A. The significantly improved elements were provision of the symbol R x (39.8 percent) (p<0.001), inclusion of the prescriber's signature (75.3 percent) (p<0.001), inclusion of the date with the prescriber's signature (54.6 percent) (p<0.001), and inclusion of the prescriber's registration (30.5 percent) (p<0.001). Overall, Group A gained almost a 50 percent improvement in writing complete prescriptions due to the intervening lecture. It appeared a traditional lecture led to the more accurate writing of a complete prescription. It was suggested that a module on prescription writing be added to the school's pharmacology curriculum, so that dental graduates will be competent in prescription writing for the sake of their patients’ health.