• Journal of Korean society of Dental Hygiene
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.921-930
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• 2017

Objectives: The purposes of this study were to analyze the trade newspapers related to 'recognition of the dental hygienist as the healthcare professional' using R program and to identify opinions of groups concerned with dental hygienists. Methods: This study was designed with contents analysis and cross-sectional. The subjects of the study were the articles for the last three years in medical and dental newspapers about the recognition of the dental hygienist as the healthcare professional. The collected articles were categorized and classified for each group's opinions about the issue. The key words were extracted according to the priorities of the opinions of agreement and disagreement. They were visualized after frequency analysis using R, a big data analysis program. Results: A total of 237 newspaper articles were extracted among 270 ones containing opinions. 245 were positive opinions and 25 were negatives. The main key words of the agreement were 'Amendment of Medical Law', 'Medical Practice', and 'Legal Guarantee of the Practice'. Advocates addressed that the issues should be resolved with the amendment of the law, as dental hygienists are not guaranteed to work based on the current law although they are actually doing the medical practices. Main key words of disagreement were 'Legal Guarantee of the Practice', 'Revision of Medical Technician Law', and 'Review of Job Type'. They described that the problem can be resolved by revising medical technicians act, and it needs to consider as job types of all healthcare professional. Conclusions: In the group who showed the positive opinions, it is possible to utilize measures such as promoting the cooperation of dental hygienists and developing public consensus through publicity.

• Journal of dental hygiene science
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.243-249
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• 2007

It has passed 40 years since dental hygiene was introduced to Korea. At this time, We hereby demonstrate the findings from the survey on the academic definition and developmental direction of dental hygiene. This survey has been conducted on dental hygiene majoring students, dental clinic hygienists of health & medical care and related professors in the dental field. The findings show that there exists a big disparity in defining the academic scope of dental hygiene among students, clinical dental hygienists of health & medical care and university professors. Accordingly, we suggest that the academic scope of dental hygiene should be explained in a uniform definition. In addition, the results of this survey suggest that they feel that the status of dental hygiene is really behind other study fields, in view of such high response thereto. For development of dental hygiene study and enhancement of its social status, the joint professional study by private, government and scholars should be immediately promoted and a wide variety of programs for dental hygiene should be continuously implemented under the auspices of government and academic world.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Dental Administration
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.21-28
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• 2019

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.

• Journal of Korean society of Dental Hygiene
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.333-341
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• 2014

Objectives : The purpose of the study is to investigate the oral health knowledge and attitude toward the patients and to provide the right direction for oral health improvement in the dental hygienists. Methods : A self-reported questionnaire was filled out by the 297 adult patients who were taught by the oral health education by the dental hygienists in Seoul and Gyeonggi province from May-July 2013. Results : Among the patients, 34.7 percent replied that they had oral health education by the dental hygienists. The intention to revisit to dental clinic accounted for 60.6%. Those having the oral health education by the dental hygienists accounted for 67.7%. Conclusions : It is very important for the dental hygienists to educate the patients on the oral health knowledge that can influence the dental clinic revisit intention.

• Journal of Korean society of Dental Hygiene
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.281-293
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• 2018

Objectives: This study was conducted to identify the requirements for the clinical dental tasks in the dental hygienists using the frequency of dental hygienists' tasks in the Korean dental clinics, and to provide them with the core competencies for achieving these. Methods: This study was based on evaluation of a self-reported survey. The dental hygienists were investigated upon classification of their tasks into direct and assistant performances, and the dentists were investigated by the competency level of the dental hygienists. The data from 481 clinical dental hygienists and 67 dentists were used for final analysis in this study, excluding the subjects who provided incomplete or inappropriate responses to the survey. The collected data were analyzed by frequency analysis. Results: The clinical dental core competency tasks of the dental hygienists were divided into 4 tasks for common dentistry, 4 for periodontics, 5 for conservative dentistry, 5 for pediatric dentistry, 5 for dental prosthodontics, and 3 for dental orthodontics. Clinical dental core competency tasks of the dental hygienists were performed more frequently of tasks performance than 8.0, and dentists required competence level was similar to that of most dental hygienists clinical dental core competencies. Conclusions: It is necessary to check whether the curricula of the universities include the competencies for the students enough to perform the corresponding tasks and the core competencies need to be reflected in the curricula. The clinical dental core competencies need to be agreed by dental hygienists, and it is necessary to be organized as the evaluation guide of the institute of dental hygiene education and evaluation and utilized as the national examination.

• Journal of Korean society of Dental Hygiene
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.873-873
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• 2019

• Journal of dental hygiene science
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.19-27
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• 2021

Background: The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of dental hygiene students' communication ability and conflict management types on adaptation to college life improve adaptation to college life and to suggest strategies to play a role as a professional dental hygienist in clinical practice. Methods: The subjects of this study were selected by random sample extraction of dental hygiene students from two colleges in Gyeonggi and one Chungcheong area. The survey was conducted online for dental hygiene students from July 20 to October 31, 2020. In order to comply with research ethics, this study was investigated with the consent of the subjects. The sample was analyzed for the final 351. Results: Dental hygiene students' communication ability was 3.74 points, conflict management types was 3.01 points, and adaptation to college life was 3.30 points. In the type of conflict management according to the general characteristics, the problem-solving method, the avoidance method, the compromise method, and the concession method showed statistically significant differences in major satisfaction. Among the types of conflict management, the highest positive correlation (r=0.613) was shown in the relationship between the problem-solving method and the compromise method. Factors influencing the adaptation to college life were concentration, forced method, self-disclosure, conversational coherence, and social relaxation. Conclusion: This study is significant in that it derives sub-areas of communication ability and conflict management types that influence adaptation to college life. In the future, there is a need to improve the quality of dental hygienists by continuously conducting research on the types of conflict management targeting dental hygienists, and responding more proactively and actively to conflict situations in the clinical field.

• Journal of Korean society of Dental Hygiene
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.497-504
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• 2015

Objectives: The purpose of the study is to investigate the influence of socio-demographic characteristics and ethical type on self-esteem in dental hygiene students. Methods: A self-reported questionnaire was completed by 657 dental hygiene students in J region from November 10 to December 10, 2014. Data were analyzed by SPSS 12.0 program. The study instrument consisted of ethical type and self-esteem by Liker 5 scale. Ethical type was adapted from Ethics Position Questionnaire by Forsyth and self-esteem was adapted and modified from Rosenburg instrument. Cronbach alpha was 0.850 in ethical type and 0.840 in self-esteem. Results: Ethical type of dental hygiene students showed higher idealism of 3.87 and relativism of 3.59. Self-esteem was 3.49. Extroverted personality tended to show higher self-esteem. Age, monthly income of parents, family atmosphere had an influence on self-esteem. The explanatory power of the study was 35.0%. Conclusions: The ethical type and self-esteem were the important factors to the dental hygiene students in career development.

• Journal of Korean society of Dental Hygiene
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.635-649
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• 2019

Objectives: This literature review seeks to identify the current status of the liberal arts education of dental hygiene majors offered by universities in Korea and the U.S. and provide a comparative analysis of the data on liberal arts education in both countries. Methods: From April 3, 2017 to May 1, 2017, research data on curriculum topics were collected from 60 selected universities. The data were collected from university websites, which also provided the universities' emails and dental hygiene major descriptions. We calculated the descriptive statistics of the variables and performed independent t-tests on the data. Results: In all the domains of the NCS and K-CESA, the dental hygiene major currently offers courses on language and communication and general education, focusing on self-management and development. Few universities offer subjects from other disciplines. Conclusions: Pro-actively exploring strategies is a prerequisite to the systematic operation of standardized dental hygiene education. It is imperative to conduct research consistently on relevant topics, such as teaching methods, general education standards, and connectivity between major subjects and the goals and effects of exposure to a general education.

• Journal of Korean society of Dental Hygiene
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.301-310
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• 2021

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to identify the types of ethics, professional intuition, and ethical competencies of students majoring in dental hygiene and to provide appropriate dental hygiene education by confirming the relationship between them. Methods: A survey was conducted from March 2 to March 30, 2021 using a questionnaire, and the data were analyzed using chi-square test, one-way analysis of variance, and Pearson's correlation analysis. Results: Regarding the ethics type, absolutists accounted for 36.1%, relativists for 33.8%, subjective for 16.5%, and exceptionalists for 13.5% of the respondents. Dental hygiene professional intuition scored 3.53 points, and ethical competence scored 3.52 points. The points for professional intuition and ethical competence according to the type of ethics were 3.64 and 3.61 for the absolutist, 3.55 and 3.53 for the relativist, 3.47 and 3.53 for the exceptionalist, and 3.27 and 3.37 for the subjective, respectively. The propensity of idealism showed a positive correlation with dental hygiene professional intuition and ethical competence (p<0.001). The tendency of relativism correlated with ethical competence, and ethical competence correlated with dental hygiene professional intuition (p<0.05). Conclusions: The implication of this study is that students majoring in dental hygiene must have clear and high dental hygiene professional intuition and ethical competence in order to demonstrate their potential positively. Therefore, ethics education and proper decision-making training must be included in the dental hygiene curriculum.