Dental students are assessed using a range of methods in their final-year examinations. The aim of this study was to explore the correlations and predictive value of final-year dental students' performance on knowledge-based and clinical assessments. Examination data related to applied dental knowledge (ADK), exit case presentation (CP), and integrated structured clinical examination (ISCE) assessments for five consecutive cohorts of final-year students at one U.K. dental school from 2011-12 to 2015-16 were collated. The relationships between the scores produced by each assessment were investigated to explore the relative contributions of each to the understanding of students' abilities across the domains. The study utilized data from all 304 students: 147 (48.4%) females and 157 (51.6%) males. Significant positive correlations were found between ISCE and ADK performance (r(391)=0.42, p<0.001) as well as between ISCE and CP (r(391)=0.44, p<0.001). In addition, both ADK performance and CP performance were significant predictors (at p<0.001) of ISCE performance. This study provides important information about the relationship between these students' performance across knowledge (ADK) and clinical (ISCE and CP) domains and highlights their predictive value. Further research is required to establish if these findings can be generalized and to explore the correlations between performance of dental students before and after graduation.

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If citing, it is advised that you check and use the publisher's definitive version for pagination, volume/issue, and date of publication details. And where the final published version is provided on the Research Portal, if citing you are again advised to check the publisher's website for any subsequent corrections.

The attitude of nursing staff to the denture care of in-patients in hospital following the introduction of written guidelines on denture care was assessed together with the need for further guidelines. A survey in the form of a questionnaire was carried out on 100 nursing staff in a general hospital. The topics covered included usefulness of the guidelines and denture hygiene and general denture care procedures on the ward together with aspects of general denture care included in the nurse training programme. There was a 66% response rate. The results highlighted that the introduction of written guidelines were helpful to the nursing staff but additional training was requested. A computer-aided learning (CAL) programme on denture care aimed specifically at nursing was then developed. A total of 81 nursing staff were surveyed following the introduction of the CAL programme. The results demonstrated that the CAL programme was well received by 100% of the staff surveyed. Further work is to be undertaken on the development of an oral-health educational programme for nursing staff.

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