Five-Year Evaluation of Students' Profiles and Professional Perspectives in an Innovative Dental Education Modality: A Mixed-Methods Approach.

Introduction: This study explored the effects of a novel dental education modality (evening enrolment) on the graduating dental students' profiles within a public university setting, encompassing both their curricular experiences and professional perspectives.

Materials and methods: This cross-sectional observational study was conducted with dental students (daytime and evening enrolment modalities) who graduated between 2018 and 2022. It employed a semi-structured, non-identified, pretested research instrument examining sociodemographic-family profiles, experiences in teaching-community-research activities and professional perspectives. A mixed-method approach was employed, adopting the phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty as its theoretical framework and employing multivariable logistic regression for quantitative analysis.

Results: A total of 205 students participated. Overall, the majority were females, single, childless and state natives. Daytime students were younger (47.7% aged 21-24 years) than evening peers (84.8% aged ≥ 25 years) (p = 0.00). Daytime students had higher parental education and workforce engagement, whereas evening students were more likely to have mothers with lower education levels (OR = 4.72; 95% CI: 1.33-16.74) and not in the workforce (OR = 3.78; 95% CI: 1.46-9.76). Daytime students participated more in elective service-learning activities (p = 0.00). Qualitative analysis revealed challenges in the high mandatory curricular workload, limited promotion of teaching-community-research activities, slot availability and difficulty balancing work and study. Students from both modalities expressed intentions for diverse professional affiliations and postgraduate career advancement.

Conclusion: This study underscores the alignment in sociodemographic profiles and professional perspectives between daytime and evening education modalities. However, disparities in age, parental workforce engagement, family income and elective service-learning activities necessitate tailored strategies for optimised educational training. These insights contribute to enhancing access and retention of dental students in low- and middle-income countries.