earticle

영어

Objectives: Dental hygienists learn new knowledge and technologies on their work via continuing
education and improve their qualifications as the people who are engaged in the professional job.
Hence, I intend to understand the continuing education situation and satisfaction of the dental
hygienists in Busan region and provide the basic material which contributes to the development
of the continuing education of the dental hygienists.
Methods: I conducted a self-administered question survey of the target subjects. That is, I visited
the subjects in person, explained the purport of the survey to those subject and then asked them
to directly write the answer the questions in the questionnaire. I analyzed the questionnaires collected by using a SPSS/PC program and the difference of significance depending on the group of the subjects was tested by Chi-square test or Fisher exact probability test. I set the level of the statistical significance at α=0.05.
Results: Among the subjects, the population aged 20～29 took a lion’s share with 86.7% (or 215
persons) and in working place, dental clinic accounted for 58.9%, showing the highest figure. In
employment period, dental hygienists who were working for less than 3 years took the highest
portion at 74% (or 181 persons). In the question of asking the number of participating in the
continuing education for the recent 3 years, 58.5% of the total respondents said that they participated once or twice, taking the highest portion and the ratio of the persons who had participated in continuing education was 2.0%. And the ratio of the persons who had never participated was 12.5%.
With regard to the reason of participating in continuing education, “necessity of re-education and
acquiring new knowledge” accounted for the highest portion at 29.8% (or 74 persons), followed
by “information education” with 22.2% (or 55 persons). In the non-participation reason, 31.5% of
the respondents answered that they did not participate for “personal reason,” taking the highest.
Followed by “a shortage of the promotion of continuing education” with 29.8% and “no necessity” with 17.3%. In satisfaction of continuing education, 94.4% of the subjects was satisfied with an
education place, showing the highest figure. The satisfaction of education fee was 64.5% and the
satisfaction for education content showed 91.1%, being a very high ratio. In the necessity of
improvement, “keeping the current situation” accounted for 73.8%, taking a high figure.
Conclusions: The study showed that most of the dental hygienists who were then receiving
continuing education were very satisfied with the education and wanted to acquire new technologies or knowledge.