Teledentistry content in Canadian dental and dental hygiene curricula.

Abstract

To explore the extent to which teledentistry (TD) content is incorporated into Canadian dental and dental hygiene curricula. An anonymous survey was distributed among all 10 dental and 35 dental hygiene programs across Canada in June and July 2022. The survey focused on TD teaching (methods employed, content taught, and barriers to TD education), with descriptive (frequency, maximum, minimum, mean) and inferential (Pearson chi-square for odds ratio test) data analyses using SPSS. A ρ - value<0.05 was considered statistically significant. Thirty-four programs responsed to the survey, including all dental (n=10) and 68% (n=24) of dental hygiene programs; eighteen reported having TD content, including three dental programs. An average of 9.22±4.86h was reported for teaching TD, with lecture format as the most employed approach and using TD in dental practice as the most covered topic. While 53% of the dental hygiene programs employed formative and summative assessments, only one dental program reported having assessment for this content. Moreover, programs that dedicated less than 9 h to teaching this content were less likely to address more than seven topics (Odds ratio (OR)=0.14). The dental and dental hygiene programs in Canada differ in their offering TD education, and 30% of the dental and 62.5% of the surveyed dental hygiene programs addressed TD content. This scarcity emphasizes the necessity for incorporating such content in future curriculum planning to consequently decrease the lack of knowledge, an identified barrier to TD implementation in education and practice, as today's students will be future educators.