The current status of Interprofessional Education in Dentistry: A Narrative Review
Abstract
Background: The oral cavity reflects systemic health conditions, yet interprofessional collaboration between dentists and other healthcare professionals remains understudied in dental education. Interprofessional education (IPE) fosters collaborative practice by enabling students from different health professions to learn about, from, and with one another. This narrative review aims to identify the perceptions, readiness, and barriers experienced by dental students regarding IPE. Methods: This narrative review collected data from the electronic databases PubMed, Google Scholar, and Portal Garuda. Articles were included if they involved preclinical or clinical dental students, discussed the status of IPE (perceptions, readiness, and barriers) in dentistry, and were published between 2016 and 2026, in either Indonesian or English. Results: Across multiple studies, dental students generally reported positive perceptions of IPE, with relevance often rated higher than among medical students, and this perception correlated with stronger foundational knowledge and greater motivation to continue interprofessional practice after graduation. Readiness assessments similarly indicated good preparedness, particularly among students with substantial prior exposure to dental theory. However, implementation faces notable barriers: an already dense and rigid dental curriculum limits room for additional IPE content; the specificity of dental cases can make interprofessional sessions feel less relevant or reduce students' sense of meaningful contribution; and the absence of standardized evaluation instruments hinders consistent assessment of IPE outcomes across institutions. Conclusion: Dental students demonstrate strong readiness and largely positive attitudes toward IPE, but curriculum density, case-specificity concerns, and inadequate evaluation methods remain significant obstacles. Deliberate curriculum redesign and the development of standardized assessment tools are needed to translate this readiness into effective interprofessional collaborative practice.