Abstract:

To find out the knowledge and perspectives of professional students of the Faculty of Dentistry of Hasanuddin University regarding complementary and alternative medicine in the field of dentistry. The clinical students of class 2014 and 2015 are the respondents in this study. Each received an online questionnaire in the form of Google Form, which consists of questions about knowledge and perspectives on complementary and alternative medicine, along with additional questions about the characteristics of the respondents (gender, class). The data are then analyzed with statistical analysis. The mean correct answers to five items of the clinical question from 148 participating students were 2.22 ± 1.14. Of the 740 correct answers expected (5 correct answers from each student) for 5 clinical questions, only 329 correct answers (44.45%) were obtained. The percentage of students who have little to no knowledge about CAM is 85.8% (127 students). Only 29 students (19.6%) disagreed that CAM was necessary for health and dental services. Twenty-one out of one hundred forty-eight students stated that they knew CAM. More than half of the students are interested in learning more about CAM and agree that CAM education should be integrated into the curriculum.

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