Terminal efficiency of Peruvian university students in the second specialty programs of a dental school over seven years [version 1; peer review: awaiting peer review]

Background Concerns regarding academic efficiency at the postgraduate level in university programs require attention from those responsible for making university administrative decisions. This study aimed to determine the terminal efficiency of Peruvian university students enrolled in second specialty programs in a dental school over seven years. Methods This cross-sectional study considered all records of documents submitted for obtaining a title of second professional specialty in the programs offered by a dental school, published in its institutional repository between 2017 and 2023. The study variable was terminal efficiency (TE), considered both as a quantitative and qualitative variable. Additionally, some covariates were included, such as the year of formal document submission, the mode of document preparation, the second professional specialty in dentistry, and sex. Descriptive analysis was conducted to obtain absolute and relative frequencies. Bivariate analysis was performed using Chi-square, Mann-Whitney U, and Kruskal-Wallis tests. Results From the evaluation of TE between 2017 and 2023, it was observed that 72.09% (n=186) of students with a document submitted for obtaining a title of second professional specialty and published in the repository had a TE categorized of "Up to 1 year". Likewise, the mean TE was 0.95 years (SD=1.25), with a statistically significant difference (p