Self-reported preparedness of final year undergraduate dental students and interns in Saudi Arabia: a multi-institutional study

Contemporary undergraduate dental education aims to equip the dental students with clinical competence, empathy, and professionalism to enable them to deliver safe and effective dental care to the communities. The purpose of this study was to assess the self-reported preparedness of final year dental students and interns at three Saudi dental institutions, using the pre-validated Dental Undergraduates Preparedness Assessment Scale (DU-PAS). A cross-sectional study design was employed to assess the self-reported preparedness of the participants using the DU-PAS. Following ethics approval, a probability sampling technique was used to recruit undergraduate dental students and interns from three dental institutions in Saudi Arabia. The data was collected online on Google Forms and all participants provided their consent to participate in the study prior to providing their responses to DU-PAS. Responses were received from 397 participants including 171 males and 226 females yielding a response rate of 60.3