Professionalism and e‐Professionalism From Dentists’ Perspective: A Multicenter Cross‐Sectional Study

TL;DR

This study explores how dental professionals and students in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Jordan view professionalism and e-professionalism, finding regional and demographic differences in awareness and attitudes.

Contribution

The study provides new insights into regional variations in dental professionalism and e-professionalism awareness among students and professionals in three Middle Eastern countries.

Findings

Jordanian and Saudi participants showed higher awareness of professionalism compared to Iraqi participants.

Older participants and those in the private sector scored higher on professionalism aspects.

Communication skills were uniformly high across regions, but e-professionalism scores varied.

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate professionalism and e‐professionalism from the perspectives of students and dentists in multiregional countries (Saudi, Iraq, and Jordan).

Data were collected using a self‐administered questionnaire that investigated professionalism from students’ and dentists’ perspectives in multiregional countries (Saudi, Iraq, and Jordan). Participants were asked specific questions regarding sociodemographic factors, including gender, region, age, educational level, years of experience, and work sector, and questions about professionalism, including professional attitude and behavior, ethics and jurisprudence, consciousness, communication, and interpersonal skills, quality of life and personal satisfaction, and e‐professionalism. The questionnaire was scored with participants’ answers following an agreement scale, from strongly agree to strongly disagree. The data from 292 participants (91 males and 201 females) were collected and analyzed using SPSS computer software. Statistical significance was considered at 95% confidence intervals and a two‐tailed α of 0.05.

The results showed that participants from Jordan and Saudi Arabia were more aware of the meaning and aspects of professionalism and thought that professionalism should be included as part of the undergraduate curriculum than were participants from Iraq (p  < 0.001), with more participants from Saudi Arabia taking educational or training courses about professionalism than participants from Jordan or Iraq (p  < 0.001). No significant differences were found between genders regarding awareness of the meaning and aspects of professionalism. Furthermore, significant differences were found between different levels of education regarding awareness of the meaning and aspects of professionalism (p  < 0.001). Older participants were more aware of the meaning and aspects of professionalism than younger participants were (p  < 0.001). Additionally, no relationship was found between the work sector and awareness of the meaning and aspects of professionalism. The Jordanian participants scored more than the Saudi and Iraqi participants on each item, as did the professionalism subscale (p  < 0.05). Moreover, Saudi participants scored higher than Iraqi participants in all significantly different item responses except for questions 29, 30, 33, 38, and 39, as well as in all significantly different professionalism subscale scores except for the quality of life and personal satisfaction subscale scores (p  < 0.05).

The regional differences in awareness and attitudes toward professionalism among dental professionals and students from Jordan, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia were highlighted, and notably, Jordanian and Saudi participants demonstrated higher levels of professionalism than the participants from Iraq. Factors such as age, gender, work sector, and nationality significantly influenced professionalism, with older professionals, females, and those in the private sector generally scoring higher. The study also highlighted uniformly high communication skills across regions and variations in e‐professionalism scores. It was also emphasized that sociocultural factors contributed to improved quality of life and personal satisfaction in Jordan and Iraq.

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