Background: Dental students' awareness about oral biopsies is found to be low. Oral biopsies are a significant tool for diagnosis.
Objective: This cross-sectional study aims to assess the knowledge of dental students in Yemen.
Methods: An e-questionnaire was sent to 187 dental students and professionals from six universities in Yemen. The universities included UST Aden, Aden University, etc. The data were analyzed with SPSS v.26 software. The knowledge of the dental students was assessed based on six domains.
Results: The mean overall knowledge was found to be 55.1% ± 21.2%. Significant gaps in knowledge were observed in choosing optimal biopsy size (39.0%), biopsy techniques (42.2%), and the role of the oral pathologist (45.5%). On the other hand, students showed high levels of knowledge in the complications that may occur during a biopsy procedure (71.9%). Only 13.4% of the participants showed high levels of competence in the overall knowledge test by scoring ≥80%. Interestingly, clinical experience ≥6 years was not found to be a contributing factor for high levels of knowledge compared to less experienced students (52.2% vs. 55.6%, p = 0.405).
Conclusion: This study showed that although students have a high level of knowledge about the indications for a biopsy procedure and the complications that may occur during the procedure, there are significant gaps in knowledge about the technical and interdisciplinary aspects of a biopsy procedure. Moreover, the fact that clinical experience does not improve levels of knowledge shows that the current curriculum does not suffice for high levels of expertise.