In this study, an attempt was made to evaluate the effect of training on the dental students in the health centers. The subjects used in this research were 82 fourth year students of Tokyo Medical and Dental University. A group of 3-5 students visited one of the three health centers and they gave health counseling, dental examination and dental health education of the infants (1-3 years of age) with their mothers.
The assessment was obtained by means of reporting their random thoughts and impressions just after the training. The students' random thoughts and impressions were made on the following items: 1) The activities in public health and preventive medicine, 2) mothers and infants, 3) the students themselves, 4) the staff of the health center, 5) the functions and equipments of the health center, 6) activities of the health center, 7) science of dentistry and dentist and 8) miscellaneous.
Through this training, the students seemed to develop a greater change in their opinions toward the outgoing community involvement and to giving positive regard to the patients as a person.