Knowledge and performance of senior dental students of Zanjan University of Medical Sciences (Iran) regarding the principles of oral biopsy and cytology

The present study was designed to evaluate the knowledge and attitude of the sixth-year dental students of Zanjan University of Medical Sciences regarding the principles of oral biopsy and cytology.

This cross-sectional study was concocted on 70 of the final year dental students of Zanjan University of Medical Sciences in 2021. The data was collected in the census method. The data collection tool was a researcher-made questionnaire, the first part of which included demographic information (n=3) and the second part related to students’ knowledge (n=10) and performance (n=4) of the principles of biopsy and oral cytology. Before distributing the questionnaire, its validity and reliability were confirmed. The data was entered into SPSS24 software and Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient and Independent sample t-test were used to analyze the data.

The mean and (±SD) of the age of the students was 24.84±1.72 years and 31 (44.3%) were men. The mean (±SD) scores of students’ knowledge and performance of biopsy were 4.41 (±1.12) and 0.68 (±0.60), respectively. Also, students’ knowledge and performance regarding oral cytology were 0.51 (±0.63) and 0.47 (±0.58), respectively. There was no statistically significant relationship between gender and age variables with knowledge and performance levels in the biopsy and cytology sections (P-Value>0.05).

Our study showed students’ knowledge and performance of oral biopsy was moderate, while their knowledge and performance of oral cytology was very poor, therefore, it seems necessary to provide solutions to increase students’ knowledge and performance.