Evaluation des compétences socio-émotionnelles des étudiants en médecine buccodentaire à l’Université de Yaoundé I

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: The degree-granting training in oral medicine (OM) in Cameroon ends up with a doctor's diploma in OM. Since 2020, government reforms in Cameroon have resulted in the non direct recruitment of oral health doctors to the public service after their training. However, several practical arrangements in the support of professionals in this specialty have not been made and implemented after the reforms initiated by the government, given their potential situation as self-employers. The training context involves adaptation and skills development, both socially and emotionally. The World Health Organisation (WHO) refers to socio-emotional skills (SES) as the set of abilities that enable an individual to have an adaptable and positive behaviour to effectively respond to the demands and challenges of daily life. It was, therefore, important to investigate the adaptability of learners to the work environment in which they will evolve, having received, tools and knowledge on the cognitive, behavioural and adaptive levels. OBJECTIVE: To assess the socio-emotional skills (SES) of dental students at the University of Yaounde 1 (UYI) through the description of their cognitions, the analysis of their social conditions, and the evaluation of their emotional skills. METHODOLOGY: We carried out a descriptive cross-sectional study conducted at the Faculty of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences (FMBS) of UYI, over a period of 08 months. The total population of dental students at the UYI was 440 for the 2022-2023 academic year. Our sample was made up of 250 dental students who freely agreed to participate in the study. They were subjected to a 20-minute survey, administered directly and consisting of 35 questions. A request for clearance was sent to the FMBS's institutional ethics and research committee. Data were collected and analysed using SPSS 26.0 software.The relationship between the variables was evaluated using the khi-2 test for a p-value of <0.05, considered to be statistically significant. RESULTS: A total of 220 students were enrolled with a participation rate of 88%. The sex ratio was 0.90. The mean age was 23.07 years with a standard deviation of 2.56. A minimum age of 17 years and a maximum of 30 in the total population. With regard to cognitions in oral studies, the work noted that in the context of non-recruitment, 53.6% of students easily assimilated lectures. However, 24.1% of students found it difficult to assimilate curricula. In addition, 36.8% of students had difficulty organizing and concentrating during their clinical internships. However, 43.6% of students maintained good concentration and attendance during their internships. That being said, more than half of the students (64.5%) had an average level of cognitive learning skills. Almost (98,6%) all students being informed of the direct non-recruitment at the end of the training, 61.8% adopted postures of demotivation and worry. Indeed, 78.2% of students engaged in extra-curricular activities to relieve the pressure of the new reform. In addition, the study noted a minority of students (15%) using narcotics, as a behavior adopted as a result of the new situation. Thus, the majority of students (34.5%) had insufficient social conditions. Overall, 90.4% of students had a clear idea for their future career. Given the non-recruitment to the public service, 58.6% of students planned to obtain their work tool (dental office in this case) by means other than family caregiver. Indeed, working in a private dental office represented the most cited (84.3%) future prospect by students. In addition, the majority (54.5%) of students wanted to end their professional career with a medical specialization. As a result, the students' emotional skill level was average (72.3%) overall. All in all, the results show that the majority of dental students at UYI showed an average level (82.7%) of SES with respect to the non-recruitment challenges encountered during the academic course. CONCLUSION: Although academic training is of good quality, the challenges of non-recruitment into the public service, encountered during course, have led to an average adaptation of dental students to the UYI. At the end of this work, it seems important to provide dental students with practical resources to facilitate professional practice, such as access to bank loans and management training, in order to accompany them in self-employment and professionalization as advocated by the Rector of the UYI during his opening address for the academic year 2022-2023.