Digital dentistry among clinical-year dental students: awareness, attitudes, and curriculum expectations.
TL;DR
Clinical-year dental students held favourable attitudes toward digital dentistry and expressed strong demand for expanded training, yet their self-reported familiarity remained modest and was lowest for artificial intelligence.
Abstract
Background
Digital technologies - including computer-aided design and manufacturing systems, three-dimensional printing, digital radiography, intraoral scanners, and artificial intelligence - are increasingly central to clinical dentistry, yet their integration into undergraduate curricula remains uneven. Clinical-year students, approaching graduation and patient-facing practice, are a critical group in whom to assess this transition, but evidence on how they perceive these technologies and relate them to curriculum expectations is limited. This study evaluated the awareness, attitudes, and curriculum expectations of clinical-year dental students regarding digital dentistry.
Methods
A descriptive cross-sectional survey was conducted among fourth- and fifth-year students at a single dental faculty using a census-based approach. An 11-item online questionnaire assessed familiarity with five digital technologies, attitudes, and future professional perspectives, with an attention-check item and electronic informed consent. The questionnaire underwent multi-step validation, including expert-panel content validity, exploratory factor analysis, and internal-consistency reliability. Group comparisons by sex and year of study were examined with chi-square tests and Cramér's V, applying the Benjamini-Hochberg procedure to control the false discovery rate.
Results
Of 187 included students (85.0% response rate), the questionnaire showed strong content validity (scale-level content validity index = 0.94) and acceptable reliability (Cronbach's alpha = 0.83 for familiarity and 0.92 for the positive-attitude scale). Familiarity was highest for digital radiography and lowest for artificial intelligence. Attitudes were strongly positive: most students reported high interest in digital dentistry and a clear desire for greater curricular coverage, and 74.3% considered digital dentistry teaching at their faculty insufficient. Apparent differences by sex and year of study did not remain statistically significant after correction for multiple comparisons.
Conclusions
Clinical-year dental students held favourable attitudes toward digital dentistry and expressed strong demand for expanded training, yet their self-reported familiarity remained modest and was lowest for artificial intelligence. This gap between motivation and perceived provision highlights a concrete target for curriculum development, suggesting that undergraduate dental education should strengthen structured, hands-on exposure to digital technologies - particularly artificial intelligence - to better prepare graduates for contemporary clinical practice.