Introduction:

In Cuba, the dental major curriculum has been, for more than forty years, addressing the same principles concerning dental caries.

Objective:

To determine the reliability of an instrument for evaluating the necessary cognitive-practical skills for the minimal intervention treatment of caries within the dental major curriculum.

Methods:

A pilot and descriptive-cross-sectional study was carried out for describing, to what extent, the previously designed instrument was comprehensible and functional. The sample consisted of 52 professors from the major. The information was collected in two stages: a test for applying the instrument and a second test carried out after fifteen days. The variables consisted of 21 items resulting from some previous validation. The mean variability for each item at the time of both tests, the internal consistency through Cronbach's alpha, a mean comparison of the instrument items according to Student's t test, and the intraclass correlation coefficient were calculated.

Results:

The test and the second test showed total mean values of 2.43 and 2.47, respectively, expressing that the objectives of the instrument were partially achieved. The scores showed good consistency (test: ɑ = 0.817; second test: ɑ = 0.801). In the hypothesis test, being t ≤ 0.05 at both times, it was accepted that all items were related.

Conclusions:

The hypothesis was accepted and the form items were related to the referred skills; therefore, it can be applied for the proposed purpose.