A national survey of dental hygienists: working patterns and job satisfaction

Abstract

Dental hygienists express a high level of job satisfaction. A proportion take breaks in their career, most commonly for pregnancy and child rearing. The majority return to part-time employment after their career break. Planning of future requirements for the training of professionals complementary to dentistry should be informed by a consideration of the working patterns of dental hygienists.

The workforce of professionals complementary to dentistry in the general dental services: a survey of general dental practices in the South West

“…36 A high proportion of this group will return to dentistry, and appear to have higher levels of job satisfaction as a result. 22 This issue will become even more important as the proportion of females in the dental workforce increases.…”

“…This includes the working patterns of dental teams, the training experiences of PCDs and their commitment to a career in dentistry. Previous surveys have focused on the working practices of individual groups of PCDs, [17][18][19][20][21][22] whereas little work has been done to explore working arrangements in the general dental services. 23 Workforce Development Confederations (WDCs) hold the budget for training of clinical professions working in the mainstream NHS.…”

A survey of dental hygienist numbers in Canada, the European Economic area, Japan and the United States of America in 1998

“…Similarly, many dental hygienists in the UK have been shown to take career breaks or to work part-time. [11][12][13] It may well be that to some extent these work patterns are common in most if not all of the member states/countries surveyed. Nevertheless, even allowing for these potential inaccuracies, the data presented in the current study show huge variations in the employment of dental hygienists both between the non-European and European countries of the G7 (France, Germany, Italy and the UK) and within the EEA.…”

“…In the non-European G7 countries it appears that there were 253,825 dentists (245,169 in the EEA) and 215,435 dental hygienists (13,295 in the EEA) (Table 2 and Figure 1). Large numbers of dental hygienists were reported as practising in each of the nonEuropean G7.…”

Educational needs and employment status of Scottish dental hygienists

“…Although a limited number of publications have attempted to discuss career patterns and job satisfaction of hygienists, [1][2][3][4] there is a paucity of recent information relating to the educational needs, or employment patterns of practising hygienists.…”