Knowledge of stem cells among Dentistry undergraduates

Resumo

Stem cells (SCs) enabled great advances in different
health fields, including Dentistry. Objective: To investigate the
knowledge of last year Dentistry undergraduate students regarding
SCs and its applications. Material and methods: A questionnaire
with open-ended questions was applied to the students, followed
by qualitative-quantitative analysis involving the clustering of the
answers. Results: The majority of students (70%) defined SCs
adequately, only half of the interviewees (48.8%) were unable to
classify SCs and just 26.2% classified it correctly. On the question
about SCs from dental tissues, 77.5% reported it was possible
and 70.9% knew which tissues could be used. The main source
of knowledge was the media (36.4%), followed by the University
(26.6%); 88.5% stated that the topic was only addressed in the first
year of the course. Consequently, only 7.5% reported being capable
of answering questions about it. Conclusion: The students are not
receiving enough information about the topic.