Table 1.

Dental and non-dental students’ knowledge of periodontal diseases before and after a traditional or e-learning course

Items	Dental students			Non-dental students
	Traditional course			Traditional course			E-learning course
	Before (n = 217)	After (n = 217)	Pa	Before (n = 134)	After (n = 134)	Pb	Before (n = 69)	After (n = 68)	Pc
Self-evaluation about the knowledge of periodontal diseases	3.98 ± 0.51	4.87 ± 0.34	< 0.001	2.82 ± 0.87	4.27 ± 0.73	< 0.001	2.93 ± 0.96	4.19 ± 0.43	< 0.001
Pd							0.429	0.252
Pe					< 0.001
Aetiology and risk factors for periodontal diseases	11.99 ± 0.96	12.82 ± 0.42	< 0.001	10.79 ± 1.27	12.09 ± 1.17	< 0.001	10.88 ± 1.16	12.38 ± 0.88	< 0.001
Pd							0.618	0.036
Pe					0.235
Periodontal health and systematic health	13.63 ± 1.18	13.93 ± 1.20	0.003	11.71 ± 1.39	13.52 ± 1.65	< 0.001	11.91 ± 1.67	14.04 ± 1.37	< 0.001
Pd							0.413	0.012
Pe					1
Possible outcomes of tooth in elderly individuals	3.71 ± 0.98	4.37 ± 0.92	< 0.001	3.01 ± 0.99	3.85 ± 1.11	< 0.001	3.03 ± 0.97	4.21 ± 0.86	< 0.001
Pd							0.750	0.028
Pe					0.077
Treatment of periodontal diseases (Scaling)	12.48 ± 1.53	13.47 ± 1.47	< 0.001	11.19 ± 1.99	12.78 ± 1.90	< 0.001	11.29 ± 2.16	13.06 ± 1.80	< 0.001
Pd							0.529	0.232
Pe					0.075

Mann–Whitney U test; P < 0.05 values were significant

^aComparison of dental students before and after a traditional course

^bComparison of non-dental students before and after a traditional course

^cComparison of non-dental students before and after an e-traditional course

^dComparison of non-dental students before/after a traditional course and non-dental students before/after an e-learning course

^eComparison between non-dental students after a traditional course and dental students before a traditional course