Objectives: To assess the occlusal features, tongue habits, lip competence and their gender dimorphism in 12 years old Malaysian Malay school-children.
Materials and methods: The method involved cl inical examination of 208 subjects from public schools in Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia. Occlusal status was assessed according to Angle classification. The following features were also assessed and recorded: overjet, overbite, traumatic overbite, crowding, spacing, midline diastema, cross bite, scissors bite, dental midline shifts, canine displacement, missing teeth, traumatically fractured teeth, tongue thrust and lip competence. Descriptive statistics were used for all measurements; Chi-square was used to assess gender differences.
Results: Class I malocclusion is most prevalent in boys and girls (44.0% and 43.8% respectively), followed by Class Ill malocclusion (31% in boys and 30 .4% in girls). Anterior crowding was found in 69.7% of the sample while anterior spacing was found in 30.8%. Incompetent lips were more common in boys than gir1s.
Conclusions: The prevalence of malocclusion in this age group may warrant the need for more preventive and interceptive measures in dental and oral health planning.
Objectives: To evaluate the effect of light-cure devices and curing times on the shear bond strength (SBS) of orthodontic brackets.
Material and Methods: 60-extracted human premolars were divided into 6-groups of 10-teeth each and bonded with stainless-steel brackets by using 3M Unitek Transbond XT composite. Specimens were cured with halogen, LED and plasma arc lights with two different times for each. The specimens were subjected to shear force till debond with a crosshead speed of 1mm/min and tested after 5min. The stress was calculated and data were subjected to statistical analysis.
Results: one-way ANOVA and Dunnett T3 post hoc comparison test were used. There were no significant differences between the 6 groups (p < 0.05).
Conclusions: all curing light methods with loading force after 5 min achieved SBS more than the normal range; therefore, arch wire can be inserted at the same visit using any of tested curing light device or curing time.
Objectives: To evaluate the impact of the clinical instructor communication on dental students’ clinical training in Faculty of Dentistry, Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM). Materials and Methods: A sample of 174 undergraduate clinical dental students were recruited to complete the Clinical Education Instructional Quality Questionnaire (ClinEd IQ) which consists of forty-five questions, forty-three multiple choice questions and two open-ended. The multiple-choice questions consist of 3 subscales which were measured on a six-point Likert Scale from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree”. The open-ended responses were analysed using thematic analysis. This paper discusses the Subscale of interaction with clinical instructors and the open-ended responses. Results: The responses of 150 students were evaluated. The students rated their interaction with instructors with a mean score of 4.64 on a six -point scale. There was a significant difference between mean scores for each academic level with year five students’ score being highest. There were four areas of concern identified through the open-ended responses. Conclusion: While the quality of supervision in terms of interaction with clinical instructors is considered satisfactory and the students generally reported positive experiences, there is room for improvements especially regarding areas of concern.