Study of the Needs and Access to Training in Dental Surgery in Nouakchott

Abstract

: Quality of care requires initial training of professionals in line with current health challenges and continuing education in order to remain up-to-date with good health practices. In dentistry, many changes have been observed in recent years in several areas of dentistry practice. The objective of this work was therefore to study the need for and access to training in dental surgery in Nouakchott. A descriptive cross-sectional study based on a direct and self-administered questionnaire was therefore conducted from October 2021 to March 2022 among 81 dentists from the public and private sectors in the Nouakchott region. Information was collected on socio-professional characteristics, initial training and continuing education. The study revealed that 90% of the respondents were men with an average of 13 years of service. Their initial training was mainly in Senegal (27.16%) and Syria (23.46%). The majority of them (67.90%) had not implemented new technologies and 54.32% of the respondents expressed the need for continuous training in ortho-implantation. However, lack of time (39.5%) and funding (45.7%) were important barriers to accessing continuing education. Therefore, the needs expression should be transformed into learning objectives for continuous training. Also, the establishment of a department of dental surgery is a priority to reduce inequalities in access to dental training.