The Examination of Professionalism Attitudes Among Dental Students According to Class Level: A Cross-Sectional Study Using the Professionalism Assessment Scale

Abstract

The aim of this study was to evaluate professionalism attitudes among dental stu-dents across different year levels and to investigate the effect of clinical experience on the subscales of the Professionalism Assessment Scale. This cross-sectional study included 412 students enrolled in the Faculty of Dentistry at Muğla Sıtkı Koçman University. Data were collected using the Turkish version of the Professionalism Assessment Scale (PAS-TR), the validity and reliability of which have been previously established. The scale comprises three subscales: Professional Relationship and Development, Empathy–Humanism, and Responsi-bility. Internal consistency was assessed using Cronbach’s alpha coefficient. Intergroup com-parisons were performed using the Kruskal–Wallis test, followed by the Mann–Whitney U test for post hoc pairwise analyses when statistically significant differences were identified. Overall professionalism attitude scores did not differ significantly among year levels (p > 0.05). However, students in the clinical years (fourth and fifth years) demonstrated signifi-cantly higher scores in the Professional Relationship and Development (p = 0.023) and Res-ponsibility (p = 0.030) subscales compared with preclinical students. No statistically signifi-cant differences were observed for the Empathy–Humanism subscale. The overall internal consistency of the scale was high (Cronbach’s α = 0.88). Although overall professionalism attitudes remained relatively stable across year le-vels, improvements were observed in subdomains closely related to clinical experience.