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. 2021 Feb 19;9(2):22.
doi: 10.3390/dj9020022.

Improvement of the Working Environment and Daily Work-Related Tasks of Dental Hygienists Working in Private Dental Offices from the Japan Dental Hygienists' Association Survey 2019

Yoshiaki Nomura  1 , Yuki Ohara  2   3 , Yuko Yamamoto  4 , Ayako Okada  5 , Noriyasu Hosoya  4 , Nobuhiro Hanada  1 , Noriko Takei  2
Affiliations

Improvement of the Working Environment and Daily Work-Related Tasks of Dental Hygienists Working in Private Dental Offices from the Japan Dental Hygienists' Association Survey 2019

Yoshiaki Nomura et al. Dent J (Basel). .

Abstract

A dental hygienist performs various daily work-related tasks. The aim of this study was to elucidate the daily work-related tasks of Japanese dental hygienists and construct groups to understand the relationships between daily work-related tasks, the attractiveness of dental hygienist work, and the improvement of the working environment. The Japan Dental Hygienists' Association has conducted a postal survey on the employment status of dental hygienists in Japan every five years since 1981. The data on the implementation of 74 daily work-related tasks in dental offices were analyzed from the survey carried out in 2019. The questionnaires were distributed to 16,722 dental hygienists and 8932 were returned (collection rate: 53.4%). The 3796 dental hygienists working at dental clinics were clearly classified into nine groups. Full-time workers requested a reduced workload. Part-time workers requested better treatment rather than reducing the workload. Salary and human relationships were common problems with the working environment. Full-time workers felt that job security was an attractive feature of the dental hygienist role. The data presented in this study may help with the improvement of working conditions for dental hygienists.

Keywords: Japan; dental hygienists; job satisfaction; work assignments; workplace environment.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Item response curve of representative dental hygienists’ daily tasks. From all dental hygienists’ daily work-related tasks, the items that had the highest item information in each category are presented. All of the item response and information curves of the daily work-related tasks are shown in Figure S1.
Figure 2
Figure 2
t-distributed stochastic neighbor embedding (tSNE) plot by ability, calculated by item response theory (IRT) analysis of the daily work-related tasks of dental hygienists. Ability indicates the weighted number of implemented daily work-related tasks. Dental hygienists participating in this study were clearly classified by the implementation of daily work-related tasks. tSNE: t-distributed stochastic neighbor embedding.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Biplot of groups by daily tasks and requests for improvement of the working environment. The results of the corresponding analysis are graphically illustrated as a biplot. Items with similar characteristics are plotted closely and the smaller the angle in relation to a given point, the stronger the relation. Blue circles indicate requested improvements of the working conditions. Red squares indicate groups in which the proportion of full-time workers is high. Yellow triangles indicate groups in which the proportion of part-time workers is high. The contribution ratio of dimension 1 was 67.8% and for dimension 2 it was 22.5%.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Biplot of groups by daily tasks and the attractiveness of dental hygienists’ work. Blue circles indicate the attractiveness of dental hygienists’ work. Red squares indicate groups in which the proportion of full-time workers were high. Yellow triangles indicate groups in which the proportion of part-time workers were high. The contribution ratio of dimension 1 was 76.4% and that of dimension 2 was 11.8%.
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