Analysis of Factors Related to Working Status of Dental Hygienists in Japan

Abstract

The super-aged society of Japan is experiencing an increased demand for dental hygienists, of which there is currently a shortage. This study aimed to investigate the factors related to the working status of dental hygienists in Japan. We conducted a survey by mailing a questionnaire on employment to 1444 dental hygienists and obtained 537 valid responses. We conducted a bivariate analysis using either a chi-square test or t-test as well as a multiple logistic regression analysis to determine the factors related to working status. The overall employment rate was 68.2%, with a significant difference between age groups (p < 0.01). Approximately 80% of respondents considered working hours and human relations at the workplace to be important, and more than 70% of respondents considered wages as important. Finally, the following four variables were found to be significantly associated with employment status: training course attendance, a desire to work full-time, consideration of wages as important, and consideration of working hours as important. These findings suggest that it is necessary to improve working conditions and environments, including wages and working hours, as well as provide a more robust system of continued professional development for dental hygienists to increase the workforce.

Factors Affecting the Career Continuation of Newly Graduated and Reinstated Dental Hygienists Who Participated in a Technical Training Program in Japan

“…This seems to be related to the difference in employment status between NGDHs and RDHs in this study; NGDHs were more likely to work full-time, whereas RDHs tended to work part-time. This fact is also consistent with the results of a previous study in Japan, which found that fewer than half of the participants aged 30 years or older wanted to work full-time [ 13 ]. This is also consistent with studies from other countries [ 24 , 25 ].…”

“…Several previous studies have reported that the work environment of Japanese dental hygienists must be improved [ 13 , 15 , 37 , 38 ]. According to the Global Gender Gap Report 2021, Japan’s overall score in 2021 on the Gender Gap Index was 120 out of 156 countries [ 40 ].…”

“…An anonymous self-administered questionnaire survey was conducted by postal mail over three weeks from 2019 to 2020, with the cooperation of the staff of the three centers. The questionnaire was in Japanese, and questions and response options were designed based on previous studies’ survey content and questions regarding the employment of dental hygienists in Japan [ 13 , 33 , 34 , 35 ]. The questionnaire included questions regarding (1) participant demographics (e.g., age, years since qualification, current work status [full-time employment, part-time employment, job-seeking, or other], workplace [dental clinic, hospital, government, nursing home, home visitation, or other], and years of absence from the profession [RDH only]); (2) what is important to prevent early job turnover (select top three from six items); and (3) what is important to continue in the profession as a dental hygienist (select top three from nine items).…”

“…Internationally, women dominate the dental hygiene profession; this trend remains true in Japan, where 99.95% of all dental hygienists are women [ 13 ]. Notably, Japan has the most dental hygienists worldwide [ 14 ]; however, as of 2018, the employment rate of licensed dental hygienists has become relatively low (46.0%) [ 13 , 14 ]. This indicates that many registered dental hygienists do not work in these roles, creating a shortage of dental hygienists in Japan [ 14 , 15 , 16 ].…”

Are Public Oral Care Services Evenly Distributed?—Nation-Wide Assessment of the Provision of Oral Care in Japan Using the National Database of Health Insurance Claims

“…Therefore, this study investigated the status of oral and dental health care provision at the prefectural level and secondary medical care in Japan using the NDB. In addition, since the amount of dental care provision is closely linked to the workloads of dentists [22] and other oral and dental care workers, such as dental hygienists and dental technicians [23,24], we examined the influence of human resources and prefectural economic indicators from national statistics on the provision of oral and dental care services.…”