Abstract
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.
Acknowledgements
본 연구는 대한치위생(학)과교수협의회의 지원을 받아 수행한 연구결과[16] 중 일부 내용을 본 연구목적에 맞도록 재분석 및 요약하였음.
Figures & Tables
Table 1. General characteristics of the subject (dental hygienists)
