Assessment of Dental Student’s Knowledge & Attitude in The Practice of Communication Skills During Clinical Years:

INTRODUCTION: This study investigated the knowledge and the attitude levels of  dental College  students in Malaysia pertaining to proper communication skills during clinical years. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The population for this study was the dental students of a dental college in Malaysia and a sample of 80 respondents were used for this study. The respondents were given questionnaires which gauged their knowledge and attitude towards proper clinical communication. The questionnaires were collected and the data analysed using the SPSS statistical software. RESULTS: It was found that the sample had both satisfactory levels of knowledge (93.6%) and attitude (93.6 %). It was also found that there existed a significant relationship between knowledge and attitude level, (r = 0.541, α = 0.05).  T-test findings indicated that there was no significant difference of knowledge and attitude levels between level 5 and level 4,(t= 0.156). CONCLUSION: Overall dental students were found to have satisfactory knowledge and attitude of proper communication skills and level of knowledge correlated significantly with attitude levels. Future researches should seek to find the relationship between knowledge and awareness of communication skills and patient satisfaction KEYWORDS: communication skills; dental students; knowledge; attitude level