The evaluation of the confidence of senior graduate students of the department of orthodontics and newly graduated orthodontists in their basic knowledge.

The aims of structured, closed-ended (static) questionnaire was to evaluate confidence levels in basic knowledge of postgraduate orthodontic senior graduates and newly graduated orthodontists. The questionnaire adopted in the study is based on the confidence levels of orthodontists and dental students, and it looked on demographics, educational experiences and confidence levels. The study took 254 participants as the study sample size out of 696 total population size. Statistical tests were performed to analyze to examine the relationships between the research variables. Data analysis methods, descriptive statistical methods were used to examine demographic characteristics and difference tests were used to compare scores obtained from data measurement tools with demographic variables. The internal consistency measured by Cronbach alpha was satisfactory in the sample (0.845). When comparison tests were done, no statistically significant relationship was found between the different demographics and the confidence levels of senior graduate orthodontic students and newly graduated orthodontists (p>0.05). As a conclusion, senior graduate orthodontic students and newly graduated orthodontists in Turkey are confident with the knowledge they obtained during their studies except in the topic of Clear Aligners, and what was significant is the relations between different variables and their educational experiences. Finally, Turkey has similar trends and issues facing postgraduate orthodontic education and it is worth examining and resolving. Keywords: Postgraduate orthodontic education, confidence of postgraduate orthodontic students in their knowledge, perspective of postgraduate orthodontic students on their resources.