Dental and dental hygiene students' perceptions on intraprofessional education.

Purpose: Interprofessional education and intraprofessional learning experiences are fundamental to becoming an efficient member of the healthcare team for dental and dental hygiene students. The purpose of this study is to determine the attitudes and perceptions of The Ohio State University's dental and dental hygiene students on intraprofessional education and collaboration.

Methods: Dental and dental hygiene students at The Ohio State College of Dentistry were surveyed in this cross-sectional study about their readiness for intraprofessional learning. The questionnaire was modeled after a study conducted by Brame et al. which focused on assessing students' readiness for intraprofessional education and determining their perceptions towards the use of intraprofessional education.

Results: Two hundred and seventy students completed the questionnaire for a 61.3% response rate. Dental hygiene students agreed more to how incorporating shared learning would help to think more positively about other oral health care professionals (p = 0.025) and would help students to become better oral health care team members (p = 0.002). Dental students agreed more than dental hygiene students that the function of a dental hygienist is to provide support for dentists (p ≤ 0.001) and that they must acquire more knowledge than other oral health care students (p ≤ 0.001). Most students (93%) agreed that intraprofessional learning would help in becoming a more effective oral health care team member.

Conclusion: Dental hygiene students feel more strongly than dental students about including intraprofessional education in their learning. However, all students were receptive to the idea of incorporating intraprofessional practices.