Service-Learning in undergraduate dental education: Professional competence for clinical decision-making

The objective of the present study was to evaluate a Service-Learning activity in a dental education programme and the clinical decision-making in the development of professional competence of undergraduate dental students.

The study consisted of a single holistic case study that involved quantitative and qualitative analyses. A total of 246 last-semester students from a School of Dentistry in southern Brazil, between the years of 2013 and 2016, answered an anonymous online questionnaire with open- and closed-ended questions (5-point Likert scale). Two thematic axes were analysed: structural and pedagogical evaluation of the internship experience and development of professional competences (theory of Ergology). The SPSS program (16.0) was used to obtain means and standard deviations for a descriptive analysis of the data. Content analysis was performed for the qualitative data.

The scores ranged from neutral to positive concerning pedagogical dynamics (mean scores between 3.08 and 3.82). The preceptors were evaluated with the best mean score (3.82). All the components used to assess professional competences obtained positive scores with the exception of teamwork (2.95). Adaptations to the clinical protocols learned in class were made by 44% of the students.

The data showed that undergraduate dental students in the Service-Learning programme acquire competencies for clinical decision-making under unusual reality conditions. Adaptation of protocols was not related to less or greater knowledge of the protocols, which would be a negative condition, but to the students' ability to formulate connections between scientific knowledge and the clinical practice.