Assessment of the Clinical Ability of Dental Students in Tooth Extraction at the University of Sulaimani

Introduction: To evaluate undergraduate students’ clinical ability to extract teeth, we created a new, coordinated, and quantitative assessment form containing nine items that were required to measure the various skills, using the visual analog scale. Materials and Methods: A pilot study was performed with 30 students, each of whom was rated by three examiners. In addition, 118 students (59 fourth-year and 59 fifth-year) were reviewed halfway through the year and at their final examinations. The assessment form was then used to evaluate students’ abilities for tooth extraction throughout the academic year 2022–2023. Results: High inter-examiner reliability and a significant association of mean scores (p < 0.001) between three examiners at the beginning and final of the block for both 4th and 5th students. Both groups showed considerable improvement in their mean scores between the beginning and final examinations. The result shows the association between socio-demographic characteristics of patients treated by fourth and fifth-stage students, (52.54% and 54.24%) of the participants were males in fourth and fifth-stage students respectively. At the same time (47.46% and 45.76%) of the participants were females in fourth and fifth stage students respectively. The age of majority of the participants was more than 30 years old, representing (76.27%), and only (10.17%) were between 25-30 years in fourth stage students, and (8.47%) were between 25-30 years in fifth stage students. Conclusion: The use of a newly developed assessment scale during tooth extraction offered an objective, standardized, and feasible method for the assessment of clinical skills of undergraduate students for both formative and summative purposes.