The Oral Health workforce in Cameroon; the past, the present and the future

Abstract

Manpower training and development is essential to the improvement of health including oral health. The purpose of this study was to conduct a situation analysis, document trends, and make future projections for the oral health workforce in Cameroon. Data were collected from publications of the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, National Order of Dental Surgeons of Cameroon, the Cameroon Dental Association and the Association of Cameroon Nurses, Midwives, and Health Technicians. Test for significance was done with Chisquare and Fisher's exact statistics and statistical significance was set at P<0.05. A total of 178 dental surgeons with a mean age of 41±9.1 years were recruited in the study. More than half (53.37 %) of the dental surgeons were females aged 41-50 years, worked in private practice mainly in the Central region (47.19 %). Nearly all the dentists (93.26 %) resided in urban centers. Only 13 respondents had postgraduate studies. More than half (57.69 %) of the dental surgeons participated in continuing dental education program Both dental schools in Cameroon graduated a total of 48 students in 2014 and are projected to graduate 490 dentists by 2019. Prior to 2006, there were 20 dental technicians trained for a period of two years. Between the years 2008 to 2014, 208 registered dental therapists (43 males, 47 females) and 14 dental technologists were trained. Forty percent of them were employed by the government and only 20% of the dental therapists work in rural areas. This study revealed the perennial struggle in Cameroonian oral health workforce training and development which transited from foreign oral health workers, to foreign trained indigenous oral health workers and finally to locally trained indigenous oral health workers. Keywords: Oral health, workforce, Cameroon, training