The Oral Health workforce in Cameroon; the past, the present and the future.

Abstract

Manpower training and development contributes to the improvement of health including oral health. The purpose of this study was to document trends, situation analysis and future projection of the oral health workforce in Cameroon. Data were collected from publications of the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, National Order of Dental Surgeons of Cameroon, Cameroon Dental Association and Association of Cameroon Nurses, Midwives, and Health Technicians. Test for significance was done with Chi-square and Fisher’s exact statistics. Statistical significance was set at P<0.05.A total of 178 dental surgeons with a mean age of 41±9.1 years. The majority of the dental surgeons were females (53.37 %), aged 41-50 years (30.51 %) and worked in private practice  especially in the Central region (47.19 %). Most of the dentists  (93.26 %) reside in urban centers. More females (28.6 %) as compared to male practitioners (18.5 %)  were found in private practice than other types of practices. Only 13 of them had postgraduate studies. More than half (57.69 %) of the dental surgeons have had only one continuous dental education. Both dental schools in Cameroon have graduated 48 students in 2014 and are projected to graduate 490 dentists by 2019. Prior to 2006, there were 20 dental technicians trained for 2 years. Between the years 2008 to 2014, 208 registered dental therapists (43 males, 47 females) and 14 dental technologists were trained. Fourty percent of them were employed by the government. Only  20%  of the dental therapists work in rural areas. This study revealed the perennial struggle in Cameroonian oral health workforce training and development which transited from foreign oral health workers, to foreign trained indigenous oral health workers and finally to locally trained indigenous oral health workers.