Author
Listed:
- Pentti Nieminen
(Medical Informatics and Data Analysis Research Group, University of Oulu, 90014 Oulu, Finland)
- Eswara Uma
(Faculty of Dentistry, Manipal University College Malaysia, Melaka 75150, Malaysia)
- Shani Ann Mani
(Department of Paediatric Dentistry and Orthodontics, Faculty of Dentistry, Universiti Malaya, Kuala Lumpur 50603, Malaysia)
- Jacob John
(Department of Restorative Dentistry, Faculty of Dentistry, Universiti Malaya, Kuala Lumpur 50603, Malaysia)
- Marja-Liisa Laitala
(Research Unit of Oral Health Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, University of Oulu, 90014 Oulu, Finland
Medical Research Center, Oulu University Hospital, 90014 Oulu, Finland)
- Olli-Pekka Lappalainen
(Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Diseases, Faculty of Medicine, University of Helsinki, 00014 Helsinki, Finland
Helsinki University Hospital, 00014 Helsinki, Finland)
Abstract
The increased use of social media in dentistry is associated with both advantages and disadvantages. A new form of professionalism, “e-professionalism,” has emerged. It includes an online persona and online information in any format that displays cues to professional identity, attitudes, and behaviors. The objective was to explore the perceptions of Malaysian and Finnish dental students on e-professionalism. A survey of 613 Malaysian and Finnish students was performed. The main variables assessed were posting of objectionable or inappropriate content among students, attitudes towards unprofessional online content, perceived online presence, contacts with patients and faculty members on social media, and concerns about social media use. The prevalence of posting clearly unprofessional content was not high among dental students. Revealing information of patients was most common content of clear unprofessionalism. Students from Malaysia contacted patients and faculty members more actively in social media than students in Finland (73.6% of students in Malaysia and 11.8% in Finland had invited faculty members to be “friends”). Malaysian students were more concerned and more likely to react to inappropriate content on social media. Attitude of dental students towards social media use in dentistry were very positive in both countries. Students agreed that guiding patients online is a new responsibility for dentists in the digital age (86.4% of students in Malaysia and 73.4% in Finland). The findings indicate the existence of both benefits and dangers of social media on e-professionalism among students. There is a need to include robust digital professionalism awareness training for students.
Suggested Citation
Pentti Nieminen & Eswara Uma & Shani Ann Mani & Jacob John & Marja-Liisa Laitala & Olli-Pekka Lappalainen, 2022.
"E-Professionalism among Dental Students from Malaysia and Finland,"
IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(6), pages 1-13, March.
Handle:
RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:6:p:3234-:d:767558
Download full text from publisher
Corrections
All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:6:p:3234-:d:767558. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.
If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.
We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .
If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .
Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through
the various RePEc services.