From leadership research to district action: Special care dentistry undergraduate curriculum in Asia-Pacific: a descriptive study of 31 dental schools

AI-assisted editorial implementation guide. Proposed district actions are separate from the original authors’ findings and recommendations. Independent peer review of this guide is not asserted.

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Evidence and transfer

Education-related source: verify which participants, institutions and outcomes were actually studied before district adoption. Source publication type: research-article. License and identity checks do not establish study quality or causality.

Original authors’ abstract, reproduced under the source license:

Abstract Background Special care dentistry (SCD) addresses the oral health needs of individuals whose disabilities, medical complexities, or social circumstances limit access to dental care. With rapid population ageing and a high disability prevalence, the Asia-Pacific region faces a growing demand for dentists competent in managing patients requiring special care. For the majority of patients requiring special care, routine basic dental care is helmed by the general dentist. While the International Association for Disability and Oral Health (iADH) has published undergraduate curriculum guidance for SCD, its implementation and attainment of learning objectives within dental schools in this region has not been examined. Aim This study aimed to describe the status of undergraduate SCD education across dental schools in Asia-Pacific, using the iADH guidance as a benchmark, and to identify strengths and gaps to inform future curriculum development. Methods A descriptive survey was conducted among faculty members involved in undergraduate SCD teaching in dental schools in the Asia-Pacific region. An online questionnaire was administered between December 2025 to February 2026, assessing the extent to which programmes fulfilled learning outcomes across the 6 competency domains of the iADH guidance. Data on course structure, teaching hours, educational modalities, and perceived limitations were collected. Quantitative data was analysed using descriptive statistics, while open-ended responses were analysed thematically. Results Thirty-one dental schools from 11 countries and jurisdictions participated. SCD was more commonly delivered as an independent subject, with a median of 15 h of didactic teaching and 8 h of clinical exposure. Overall, more schools reported sufficient fulfilment of the learning outcomes, although only three fully adopted the guidance. Common challenges included limited clinical exposure, shortages of trained academic staff, and considerations in adapting the guidance to local contexts. Conclusion Undergraduate SCD education in the Asia-Pacific region is active but variable within the sample institutions. Given uneven regional representation, the findings of this study serve as useful exploratory data. While the iADH guidance provides a valuable framework, greater flexibility, contextual relevance, and support for clinical training and educational leadership should be advocated to ensure graduates are practice-ready to meet the oral health needs of patients requiring special care. Keywords: special care dentistry, Asia-Pacific, dental education, learning outcomes, undergraduate

Study methods

A descriptive survey of dental schools across Asia-Pacific was undertaken. Eligible participants were faculty members, either part-time or full-time, involved in the teaching of SCD in a dental school situated in the Asia-Pacific region. There were no limitations to the number of respondents per country. Only one response per institution was allowed. To note, the Asia-Pacific region comprises a large and heterogeneous number of dental schools, with substantial variation in distribution across countries. As such, the present sample represents a subset of institutions rather than a comprehensive regional census. The survey form was available online from December 2025 to February 2026 on a Qualtrics platform (Qualtrics LLC, 2025). Convenience and snowball sampling were employed, including sharing the survey link through special care dentistry organisations with connection to the iADH. A participant information page was provided before the survey, and informed consent was implied through voluntary participation.

Limitations

This study is not without limitations. The convenience and snowball sampling methods gave rise to an imbalanced representation in Asia-Pacific regions, such as with a high response rate from Australia (7 out of 9 dental schools) and no responses from major regions including mainland China and South Asia. Nonetheless, the findings serve as critical pilot data for guidelines review within the limited timeframe. Given that the total number of dental schools in the Asia-Pacific region is substantially larger, the present sample should be interpreted as a subset rather than representative of the region as a whole. Consequently, the findings may have limited generalisabilty and should be considered exploratory, There may also be considerable variation in delivery of SCD content, particularly due to overlapping topics with dental specialties such as medical complexities within oral medicine, or intellectual disability within paediatric dentistry, or geriatric considerations within prosthodontics. The delineation of module content is understandably imprecise, although there are consistent themes drawn from the findings enabling fulfilment of the study's aims.

A 90-day district inquiry

Days 1–15 · Appraise. Read the source methods, recruitment, comparator, outcomes and limitations. Record how the study setting differs from your district and which claim the design can support.
Days 16–30 · Design. Choose one school improvement question with teachers. Protect a short shared planning cycle, agree an instructional change and use a common rubric for examining student work. Agree participation, privacy protections, baseline and stopping rules before starting.
Days 31–60 · Observe. Collect the pre-agreed measures, keep a log of implementation changes and invite confidential voluntary feedback. Preserve existing support for staff and learners.
Days 61–90 · Decide. Review implementation fidelity, teacher time and independently scored student work against a recorded baseline. Examine access differences and competing explanations before attributing changes to leadership. Make a dated decision to stop, revise or extend the inquiry.

Board decision brief

Present the local problem, source setting, evidence limits, intervention, responsible owner, total cost, measured changes and uncertainty. Separate staff perceptions, implementation measures and student learning outcomes.

Attribution and reuse

Gabriel Keng Yan Lee; Guang Xu David Lim; Aminda Faizura Omar; Mathew Albert Wei Ting Lim. Special care dentistry undergraduate curriculum in Asia-Pacific: a descriptive study of 31 dental schools. Frontiers in Oral Health (2026-07-07). https://doi.org/10.3389/froh.2026.1855519

Prepared 2026-11-07. Source authorship and DOI are preserved. The abstract and source passages are attributed extracts; this editorial guide is offered under the same CC BY 4.0 license.