This study examined the opinions of dentists on dental hygienists' practice and attempted to use it as the basis for the revision and modification of the legal system associated with dental hygienists. The subjects of this study were a total 15 dentists, including two from Gyeonggi, two from Gangwon, two from Gyeongsang, two from Jeolla, two from Chungcheong, and two from Seoul, who were surveyed face-to-face. This study revealed that from the perspective of dentists, the most important job of dental hygienists was scaling, and the most difficult job was patient counseling and response. From the perspective of dentists, there is a difference between what the dental hygienists actually perform and what is legal, and there is a high need for change. The inclusion of dental hygienists in the category of medical personnel should be accomplished to cover the practice of dental care support, and dentists opinionated that it is appropriate for dental hygienists to be included in the category of medical personnel because they directly perform oral health-related procedures. A careful review of the dental hygienists' scope of work should be performed to ensure that revisions to the law are made in accordance with the dental hygienists' actual practice. Further, it is necessary to revise the Medical Law and include dental hygienists among the medical personnel and simultaneously revise the scope of work of dental hygienists to reflect the actual dental practice.

Korean dental hygienists perform more tasks in dental clinics than are described in the law. The purpose of this study was to investigate the actual work of Korean dental hygienists in dental clinics using an observational study design. Two dental hygienists observed and recorded the work performed in 1 day from the time of commencement to the time of leaving work by 18 dental hygienists working in the dental clinic in a single area. Data management, prevention of infection, counseling, calculus removal, radiography, assistance of fixed orthodontic treatment, assistance of fixed prosthetic treatment, and preparation for implant surgery were recorded. Among the tasks that take more than 1 min, the most time-consuming tasks were document management, infection control, consultation, calculus removal, preparation for implant surgery, assistance of orthodontic treatment, and assistance of fixed prosthetic treatment. Korean dental hygienists are performing various tasks, such as infection control, dental hospital/clinic management, oral disease prevention, and dental treatment assistants.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the association between wrong postures and pain during scaling and encourage dental hygienists and students to exercise scaling in a good position. After obtaining informed consent, 107 students (3rd and 4th grade students) who had an experience with scaling practice were enrolled. The questionnaire included three general items, four items related to the posture during scaling, and nine items related to pain management (total 16 items), for which the five-point Likert scale was used. Through the questionnaire, we examined the preference of posture during scaling, posture education during scaling, pain in each part during scaling, pain management, and pain management method. In the scaling exercise, 86.3% of the subjects were instructed on the correct posture, and 87.9% of the subjects perceived the possibility of inducing musculoskeletal disorders based on the scaling posture. The percentage of subjects who responded that they performed scaling in the correct posture was 33.6% and that of subjects who answered that they bowed or turned their head by more than 15° was 64.4%. Further, 45.7% of the subjects answered that they bent their shoulders, and 29.9% of the subjects answered that their postures were not parallel to the floor. Pain during scaling was still higher when they bent their head, they bent their waist, and they bent their wrist (p<0.05). During scaling, pain was most frequent in the fingers and hands (15%), followed by the neck (14%), shoulders (11.2%), waist (9.3%), and feet and legs (2.8%). The percentage of subjects who performed regular exercise (or stretching) to prevent pain was 29.9% and that of subjects who managed pain after scaling was 12.1%. Further, exercise (24.6%) and self-massage (20.3%) were highly used as the pain management methods, and the school practice was preferred to education media for pain management (79.4%). In the scaling practice, there was a training on pain management, but the frequency of practicing in the wrong posture was high. Moreover, pain increased upon practicing in an incorrect posture. Therefore, more in-depth and systematic education on the necessity and method of musculoskeletal disease management during scaling is required.

The goals of this study were to investigate depression and oral health-related quality of life in the military and public and to identify the factors affecting depression. The respondents were 278 soldiers and 228 general people of similar ages. An independent t-test was used to examine the differences between the two groups in the oral health impact profile and Self-rating Depression Scale. A multivariate logistic regression analysis was performed to examine the factors associated with depression in soldiers and the public. The depression level was significantly higher in the general population than in the military personnel (p<0.001). In contrast, the oral health-related quality of life was better in the general population than in the military, but without a statistical significance (p=0.056). Among soldiers, the military rank was the only factor associated with depression, showing a gradient based on the rank. In the general population, the type of work displayed significant associations with depression. As there are some limitations to investigating the factors affecting depression, comparative analyses of the general population groups with similar soldier groups are rare. This study encourages future investigations of the advancements in mental health and improvement programs for oral health in each group.

Smartphone usage has become so common that it has reached 2 billion people in the last year. As a result of this, hospitals have started making use of smartphones at various medical sites and research services for patients. This study aimed to establish support for developing a long distance program for patients with implants who have difficulty visiting clinics or with busy modern lives, by using smartphones for oral hygiene management instruction. The data were collected for 12 weeks, from July 24 to October 21, 2015, for patients who agreed to participate in the study. Although the subjects found the process of transferring photos via smartphone to be cumbersome (75%), the satisfaction level of the oral hygiene management program was excellent for all participating patients, and they all wanted to continue with further management using this process. The results from the phone satisfaction survey showed that oral hygiene self-management after oral hygiene control training by smartphones was mostly equal to previous habits (87.5%) or had partially increased but had not decreased. The need for data on more varied age groups and the issues of protecting the security of personal information on smartphones require further study. However, our study confirmed the efficacy of using electronic media (smartphones) for oral hygiene management in patients with a dental implant due to their improvement of oral hygiene performance as evidenced by less bleeding from probing on post-program visit.

Halitosis is primarily caused by oral conditions. In particular, volatile sulfur compounds (VSCs) are mainly responsible for intra-oral halitosis. They are closely associated with the water temperature. In this study, we investigated the association between halitosis and water temperature for oral rinse (10℃, 30℃, and 45℃) using the BB checker and oral chroma. The application of BB checker on an empty stomach revealed that halitosis decreased with the use of tongue cleaners (p=0.001) and toothpastes (p=0.002). Furthermore, halitosis decreased after drinking milk (VSCs-induced food intake) (p=0.000). There were no significant differences in the results of oral chroma. Finally, we measured halitosis on an empty stomach and after drinking milk. The BB checker showed increased halitosis after drinking milk (p<0.001). The oral chroma showed decreased hydrogen sulfide (p<0.001) and increased methyl mercaptan (p=0.009) and dimethyl sulfide (p=0.002) after drinking milk. In conclusion, halitosis cannot be modulated using water temperature for oral rinse. The findings of this study cannot be generalized because of the small sample size and the limits of age and sex. Further studies are required to extensively analyze both sexes and various age groups, with more number of subjects.

The purpose of this study was to compare the number of bacteria before and after the use of surface disinfectants, demonstrate the bactericidal effect of surface disinfectants, and emphasize on the importance of surface disinfectants by recognizing the importance of infection control in dentistry. Chlorhexidine, hydrogen peroxide, ethanol, and chemical disinfectants are commonly used in dentistry. NaOCl was selected as the experimental group, and the bacterium test results obtained by comparing the table without surface sterilization as a control group showed that all disinfectants had an effective bactericidal effect (p<0.05). In the growth inhibition test comparing the experimental and control groups, all results were 100%, proving the effectiveness of surface disinfectants. The results showed that all surface disinfectants preferred and used by medical institutions were effective. Therefore, all surface disinfectants used in the experimental group were effective for surface disinfection for infection control. Dental clinicians should be aware of the necessity of disinfection of surfaces, such as table, chairs, and unit chairs, and make an active effort to ensure that both clinicians and patients are safe from infection.