Attitudes of Iranian dental students toward their future careers: an exploratory study

Students' attitudes toward and reasons for choosing careers are of great interest for educational systems around the world. The aims of this study were to investigate Iranian dental students' motivations in choosing dentistry as a career and their attitudes toward their future profession. A cross-sectional study of a group of 219 out of 225 (response rate: 97 percent) final-year dental students in four accredited dental schools in Tehran was conducted using a self-administered, structured questionnaire. The data were analyzed using SPSS version 11.5 and the Mann-Whitney test. The most popular reasons for these students' choice of dentistry as a career were a general interest in medicine and desire to enter a prestigious profession with high social status. The majority of the students planned to enter private practice; fewer intended to pursue specialty education abroad. Most of the female students planned to work in a group practice environment such as a clinic rather than a solo practice. Single students showed greater enthusiasm than married ones for pursuing further studies abroad after graduation. Overall, these dental students appeared to have positive attitudes about the dental profession.