Shazia Nawabi, Usman Mahboob.
Perception of Parents about Dentistry as a Career Option for their Children.
J Islamic Int Med Coll Jan ;11(3):131-6.

Objective: To explore the perceptions of Pakistani parents about dentistry as a career option for their pre medical group children. Study Design: Qualitative study. th th Place and Duration of Study: Rawalpindi, Islamabad, Mirpur AJK and Lahore, 30 December 2014 to 15 August 2015. Materials and Methods: Constructivist grounded theory approach was used as methodology. Data was collected from parents of pre-medical students (FSc, A-level) using purposive and convenient sampling method. In-depth semi-structured interviews were used as data collection tool. Data was analyzed using Constant comparative method for thematic content analysis. Computer Aided Qualitative Data Analysis Software NVivo was used for data analysis and management. Results: Five major themes including, awareness in society, value in society, job opportunities, knowledge and balanced personal and professional life emerged from the data. Themes were broadly classified as sociocultural, socioeconomic and personal themes and helped in conceptualizing and generating “butterfly theory of career choice”. Majority of parents perceived dentistry career as having lack of awareness and social acceptance. Conclusion: In developing countries such as Pakistan, awareness of oral health is lacking and scope of dentistry is not as much as in foreign countries. So, parents overwhelmingly prefer medicine as a career choice for their children, rather than dentistry which they think is not as valuable in the society

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