Table 5 Comparisons of levels of attitudes, awareness, and perceptions regarding oral healthcare between students in their first and fourth years and between dental and nursing students
|  | Dental students (n = 48) | Nursing students (n = 103) | Dental versus nursing students | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
First year | Fourth year | Â | First year | Fourth year | Â | First year | Fourth year | |
Mean (SD) | Mean (SD) | P value* | Mean (SD) | Mean (SD) | P value* | P value** | P value** | |
Level of interest in oral healthcare practice (0–4 point) | ||||||||
|  | 2.9 (0.9) | 3.4 (0.6) | 0.002 | 2.7 (0.9) | 3.2 (0.7) | < 0.000 | 0.214 | 0.374 |
Level of willingness to practise oral healthcare after professional certification (0–4 point) | ||||||||
|  | 3.0 (0.9) | 3.1 (0.7) | 0.283 | 2.3 (0.9) | 3.0 (0.7) | < 0.000 | < 0.000 | 0.627 |
Level of awareness of oral healthcare (0–29 point) | ||||||||
|  | 15.8 (5.6) | 19.9 (5.8) | < 0.000 | 12.8 (4.5) | 23.0 (4.1) | < 0.000 | 0.001 | < 0.000 |
Levels of perception of need to learn different procedures in oral healthcare | ||||||||
 In theory (0–14 point) | 7.3 (4.2) | 8.8 (4.3) | 0.056 | 5.3 (3.3) | 9.1 (3.4) | < 0.000 | 0.006 | 0.881 |
 In practice, (0–14 point) | 7.3 (4.3) | 8.7 (4.4) | 0.056 | 5.7 (3.3) | 9.0 (3.5) | < 0.000 | 0.019 | 0.693 |
 Total (0–28 point) | 14.6 (8.4) | 17.5 (8.4) | 0.054 | 11.0 (6.3) | 18.1 (6.5) | < 0.000 | 0.010 | 0.699 |
Levels of perception of the importance of practising collaborative oral healthcare with healthcare workers*** | ||||||||
 Physicians (0–3 point) | – | 2.3 (0.7) | – | – | 2.6 (0.6) | – | – | 0.007 |
 Dentists (0–3 point) | – | 2.9 (0.4) | – | – | 3.0 (0.1) | – | – | 0.060 |
 Dental hygienists (0–3 point) | – | 2.9 (0.4) | – | – | 3.0 (0.2) | – | – | 0.137 |
 Nurses (0–3 point) | – | 2.5 (0.5) | – | – | 2.9 (0.4) | – | – | < 0.000 |
 Certified care workers (0–3 point) | – | 2.7 (0.5) | – | – | 2.6 (0.5) | – | – | 0.353 |
 Speech–language–hearing therapists (0–3 point) | – | 2.4 (0.7) | – | – | 2.8 (0.5) | – | – | < 0.000 |
 Total (0–18 point) | – | 15.7 (2.4) | – | – | 16.8 (1.5) | – | – | 0.006 |