فهرست نشریات علمی دسترسی آزاد ایران

INTRODUCTION: Inequalities persists in distribution, accessibility, and utilization of oral healthservices between urban and rural population. One approach to lessen this inequality is by incorporatingrural outreach programs in the academic curriculum of health‑care professionals.OBJECTIVES: The objective of the study was to evaluate the effectiveness of outreachprograms on academic development, personal development, and civic responsibilities of dentalstudents and also to assess the changes in the domain scores within and between genderspostintervention.METHODOLOGY: The study population consisted of 100 dental students. The study methodologyfollowed a before and after without control informal experimental study designs. At baseline, theparticipants were administered pretested structured questionnaire developed by D. Diaz Gallegos.Intervention involved posting participants in various rural outreach activities and academic field visits invarious public health installations. Apostintervention questionnaire developed by Anu F. Shinnamon et al.was administered to assess the change from the baseline. The change in domain scores was assessedusing paired and unpaired t‑test appropriately. P ≤ 0.05 was considered as statistically significant.RESULTS: The baseline scores of academic, personal, and civic domains were 6.05 ± 2.44,8.04 ± 2.84, and 6.36 ± 2.23 which increased to 6.52 ± 2.10, 13.56 ± 3.44, and 8.55 ± 2.71postintervention, respectively (P ≤ 0.05). When comparing within genders, there was increase fromthe baseline, and this change in the scores postintervention was statistically significant (P = 0.001).The mean scores of all three domains between genders were statistically insignificant.CONCLUSION: The outreach programs developed and enhanced the subject’s academic skills,leadership qualities, self‑confidence, communication skills, managerial skills, and responsibilitiestoward the rural community.