• Journal of Technologic Dentistry
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.29-33
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• 2021

Purpose: This study was conducted on dental technicians to examine the problems of the dental laboratory registration system and devise a plan to improve it. Methods: For data collection, an online survey was conducted on 14,015 dental technicians registered in the Korea Dental Technologist Association as of October 2020. Among the collected 405 questionnaires, 391 data were used for analysis. Results: We found that dental technicians felt that the dental laboratory opening registration system was unfair. There were problems including the problem of the verification method of job performance, not acknowledging the difference in the job field, and the lack of understanding of the structure of work cooperation between dentistry and dental laboratories. Furthermore, it was recognized that the system was improved by reflecting the change in job area according to the change of the times. Conclusion: There is an urgent need to reorganize the legal system so that the dental technicians can have their professionalism and autonomy recognized while remaining faithful to the public interest of protecting the national oral health by revising the related regulations, thereby ensuring smooth work activities.

• Journal of Yeungnam Medical Science
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.347-365
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• 1995

A survey was conducted to study perception and attitudes of health workers towards health center's activities and organization of health services, from August 15 to September 30, 1994. The study population was 310 health workers engaged in seven urban health centers in Taegu City area. A questionnaire method was used to collect data and response rate was 81.3 percent or 252 respondents. The following are summaries of findings: Profiles of study population: Health workers were predominantly female(62.3%); had college education(60.3%); and held medical and nursing positions(39.6%), technicians(30.6%) and public health/administrative positions(29.8%). Perceptions on health center's resources: Slightly more than a half(51.1%) of respondents expressed that physical facilities of the centers are inadequate; equipments needed are short(39.0%); human resource is inadequate(44.8%); and health budget allocated is insufficient(38.5%) to support the performance of health center's activities. Decentralization and health services: The majority revealed that the decentralization of government system would affect the future activities of health centers(51.9%) which may have to change. However, only one quarter of respondents(25.4%) seemed to view the decentralization positively as they expect that it would help perform health activities more effectively. The majority of the respondents(78.6%) insisted that the function and organization of the urban health centers should be changed. Target workload and job satisfaction: A large proportion (43.3%) of respondents felt that present target setting systems for various health activities are unrealistic in terms of community needs and health center's situation while only 11.1 percent responded it positively; the majority(57.5%) revealed that they need further training in professional fields to perform their job more effectively; more than one third(35.7%) expressed that they enjoy their professional autonomy in their job performance; and a considerable proportion (39.3%) said they are satisfied with their present work. Regarding the personnel management, more worker(47.3%) perceived it negatively than positive(11.5%) as most of workers seemed to think the personnel management practiced at the health centers is not fair or justly done. Health services rendered: Among health services rendered, health workers perceived the following services are most successfully delivered; they are, in order of importance, Tb control, curative services, and maternal and child health care. Such areas as health education, oral health, environmental sanitation, and integrated health services are needed to be strengthening. Regarding the community attitudes towards health workers, 41.3 percent of respondents think they are trusted by the community they serve. New areas of concern identified which must be included in future activities of health centers are, in order of priority, health care of elderly population, home health care, rehabilitation services, and such chronic diseases control programs as diabetes, hypertension, school health and mental health care. In conclusion, the study revealed that health workers seemed to have more negative perceptions and attitudes than positive ones towards organization and management of health services and activities performed by the urban health centers where they are engaged. More specifically, the majority of health workers studied revealed to have the following areas of health center's organization and management inadequate or insufficient to support effective performance of their health activities: Namely, physical facilities and equipments required are inadequate; human and financial resources are insufficient; personnel management is unsatisfactory; setting of service target system is unrealistic in terms of the community needs. However, respondents displayed a number of positive perceptions, particularly to those areas as further training needs and implementation of decentralization of government system which will bring more autonomy of local government as they perceived these change would bring the necessary changes to future activities of the health center. They also displayed positive perceptions in their job autonomy and have job satisfactions.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.1220-1228
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• 2012

This study was carried out in order to offer medical service in good quality by enhancing dental hygienists' job satisfaction and to arrange basic data necessary for individual development and health promotion in dental hygienists through grasping the job stress level and job satisfaction of being experienced by dental hygienists, and the correlation. The self-administered questionnaire was surveyed and collected from August 1-12 of 2011 targeting 210 dental hygienists of general hospitals, dental hospitals, and dental clinics nationwide(Seoul, Gyeonggi, Daegu, Pohang).The analysis was made on 205 people. The collected data was analyzed by using SPSS WIN 15.0 program. As a result, out of job stress, the average was indicated to be the highest with 2.71 in 'job demand.' As a result of examining about sphere-based relationship between health perception level and job stress related to building in dental hygienists, the central nervous system manifestation showed statistically significant positive correlation with physical environment(r=.281, p<.001), job demand(r=.281, p<.001), relational conflict(r=.163, p<.05), organizational system(r=.166, p<.05), compensation inappropriateness(r=.267, p<.001), and job stress(r=.311, p<.001). Overall, the building-related health perception level showed statistically significant correlation with physical environment(r=.259, p<.001), job demand(r=.311, p<.001), relational conflict(r=.172, p<.05), organizational system(r=.158, p<.05), compensation inappropriateness(r=.197, p<.01), and job stress(r=.275, p<.001). They need to improve their quality of life and life and mental health by developing proper air conditioning system and using one in their work place. if so, they could contribute to better quality of oral cavity service for everyone.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.177-183
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• 2020

The purpose of the study is to investigate the women's college students' perceptions on work scope of dental hygienists and the inclusion of dental hygienists in the category of medical personnel. A self-reported questionnaire was completed by 180 Suwon women's college students from August 26, to September 11, 2019. The questionnaire consisted of oral health condition of the subjects, perception of both legal and illegal work scope of dental hygienist, the degree of recognition of medical personnel occupations by subject, and the reason why they thought dental hygienists are medical personnel. The collected data were analyzed based on frequency, percentage, and descriptive statistics using IBM SPSS VER 22.0. It showed significantly different perception of work scope of dental hygienists according to the major. Percent of 70 of the subjects perceived dental hygienist as a medical personnel, the opinions on the necessity were as follows: The Ministry of Health and Welfare issues a license through the national examination role and dental hygienists assist the care of dentist. Therefore, clinical dental hygienists should be promoted to medical personnel through the amendment of the medical law so that the duties practiced by the dental hygienist can be matched with the legal practice.

• Journal of Korean Dental Hygiene Science
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.35-44
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• 2022

Background: This study was aimed at investigating the perception of social network service (SNS) users regarding dental office visits and determining the proportion of dental SNS users among general SNS users. Methods: We surveyed 177 adults using SNSs. Dental SNS characteristics were classified into information provision, interaction, recency, reliability, and interest, and the recognition level of each area was surveyed on a 5-point scale. The total number of items was 17, including three information provision, three interaction, four recency, four reliability, and three interest items. Results: Among the five domains, the recognition level was the highest for reliability (3.51 points) and the lowest for interest (2.94 points). Among the 17 items, the recognition level was the highest for "Educational information provided by dental SNS is valuable" at 3.60 points, "Dental SNS educational video is useful for information sharing and dental knowledge improvement" at 3.53 points, and "The perceived educational information of dental SNS is reliable" at 3.51 points. Participants in their 20s and 30s had higher scores for being up-to-date (3.33 and 2.88 points, respectively) and reliability (3.59 and 3.09 points, respectively) than those in their 40s or older. The recognition level of all areas of dental SNS characteristics was significantly higher for experienced dental SNS users than for nonexperienced ones. Conclusions: The results of this study suggested that dental institutions should consider ways to utilize SNS for patient management and education and that dental SNS-related contents should contain educational and reliable information to help SNS users manage their oral health.

• Journal of dental hygiene science
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.23-30
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• 2011

The purpose of this study was to examine the utilization of oral health education media among dental hygienists in charge of oral health education. The findings of the study were as follows. 1. In regard to the general utilization of educational media in possession by workplace, age and career, the dental hygienists who worked in public health clinics(42.4%), who were in their 40s and up(341.%) and whose career was six years or more(32.2%) made more use of the educational media. Those who didn't use the educational media cited time constraints as the most common reason(46.1%). 2. Models(53.2%) were highly preferred in most of the institutions where the dental hygienists worked, but the public health clinics(81.8%) and university hospitals(80.0%) were most fond of video clips. 3. Concerning preference for educational media by career, the dental hygienists whose career was between three and less than six years and who had a 10 years or more of career had the most liking for video clips, followed by models. Those whose career was between one to less than three years and between six and less than 10 years showed the most preference for models, followed by video clips. 4. As for their perception of the necessity of educational media, the majority felt the need for the media(87.5%). Regarding difficulties in purchasing necessary educational media, the biggest group pointed out a shortage of information(56.1%).

• Journal of Korean society of Dental Hygiene
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.371-379
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• 2014

Objectives : The purpose of this study is to investigate the correlation between quality of sleep and dental fear in implant surgery patients. Methods : A self-reported questionnaire was filled out by 153 implant patients from December 2012 to February 2013 in dental clinics and hospitals in Busan and Changwon. Data were analyzed by descriptive analysis, t-test, ANOVA and multiple regression analysis using SAS version 9.20. Results : The quality of sleep in the implant patients was $41.0{\pm}6.0$. The systemic diseases influenced on the quality of sleep and dental fear also affected the quality of sleep. Conclusions : The results of the analysis of a relationship between the fear perception of dental implant surgery patients and the quality of their sleep showed that the patients with systemic diseases, the patients with a fear by the physical stimulation relating to implant treatment showed the low quality of sleep.

• Journal of dental hygiene science
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.255-263
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• 2023

Background: This study used text mining techniques to determine public perceptions of dental fear, extracted keywords related to dental fear, identified the connection between the keywords, and categorized and visualized perceptions related to dental fear. Methods: Keywords in texts posted on Internet portal sites (NAVER and Google) between 1 January, 2000, and 31 December, 2022, were collected. The four stages of analysis were used to explore the keywords: frequency analysis, term frequency-inverse document frequency (TF-IDF), centrality analysis and co-occurrence analysis, and convergent correlations. Results: In the top ten keywords based on frequency analysis, the most frequently used keyword was 'treatment,' followed by 'fear,' 'dental implant,' 'conscious sedation,' 'pain,' 'dental fear,' 'comfort,' 'taking medication,' 'experience,' and 'tooth.' In the TF-IDF analysis, the top three keywords were dental implant, conscious sedation, and dental fear. The co-occurrence analysis was used to explore keywords that appear together and showed that 'fear and treatment' and 'treatment and pain' appeared the most frequently. Conclusion: Texts collected via unstructured big data were analyzed to identify general perceptions related to dental fear, and this study is valuable as a source data for understanding public perceptions of dental fear by grouping associated keywords. The results of this study will be helpful to understand dental fear and used as factors affecting oral health in the future.

• Journal of dental hygiene science
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.241-246
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• 2008

he purpose of this study was to examine the awareness of dental hygienists about medical malpractice and dispute. The subjects in this study were 206 dental hygienists at dental clinics, on whom a survey was conducted. After SPSSWIN 14.0 program was utilized to analyze the collected data, the following findings were given: 1. As for experiences of being complained from patients by age, the dental hygienists who were at the age of 21 to 23 made up the largest age group (39.2%) who had ever meet patients who had grievances. By career, those who had worked for less than a year constituted the greatest group (30.4%) who had the same experiences. It indicated that the dental hygienists who were younger and had a less career had been more complained from patients. 2. In terms of problems posed by patients, scaling came into question the most (14.5%), followed by diagnosis (14.4%), impression (12.9%) and radiography (11.0%). 3. Regarding perception of scaling treatment, 90.8 percent, the greatest percentage, kept records of patients about scaling. As to how to do that, 34.5 percent, the largest percentage, wrote it down and then signed their name. Concerning the way of explaining how to take care of oral health, 82.5 percent gave an explanation without any prints. 4. As to knowledge on the medical law, they got a mean of 12.34 out of possible 16 points. 5. Concerning the necessity of education about the prevention of medical accidents and countermeasures, 70.4 percent felt the strong and urgent need for that.

• Journal of Korean society of Dental Hygiene
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.255-268
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• 2010

Objectives : In the field of dental hygiene, infections pose a serious problem. This issue has left many patients and dental staff exposed to microbes with potentially far-reaching effects. The purpose of this study was to find solutions which could improve Dental health policies and promote improved methods for the control of infections. This survey was conducted between March 3, 2008 and March 30, 2008, in the metropolitan area. The research was carried out in dental clinics and dental hygienists were surveyed through a questionnaire. Methods : Collected data was examined using the SPSS 14.0 program, using frequency, mean and standard deviation analysis, T-test, one-way ANOVA, Scheffe's test and Duncan's test. Further analysis was given using Logistic Regression. Results : The Performance of Infection Control by dental hygienists in Dental Clinics was shown at $2.96{\pm}0.42$. Disinfection, sterilization and the wearing of masks is high at $3.65{\pm}0.64$, $3.64{\pm}0.65$. The perception of the importance of infection control is higher among dental hygienists than dentists. Of the dental hygienists surveyed, 83.9% were exposed to at least one accident while at work. Age and years of experience were important in relation to infection control practices. The rate of infections and the number of accidents experienced related to the dental hygienists performance of infection control. The performance of infection control is influenced by the dental hygienists own perceptions, and the perceptions of their dentists. The dental hygienist's working conditions and their beliefs related to infection control were shown to influence their performance of infection control practices. Conclusion : At the conclusion of this investigation, it was determined that systematic refresher training of infection control should be delivered through further education and various media. Dental health care workers should be encouraged to practice these action items presented in the training. For successful implementation of infection control in every dental health-care setting, it is highly demanded that effective safe-guard tools, strategic support and standardized action items against infection problems are developed.