Analysis of Difference in Importance and Need for Basic Core Competence of Clinical Dental Hygienists

Background: The objective of this study is to investigate the needs and importance of basic core competencies required for future society by dental hygienists’ viewpoints who are working in the clinical practices and to provide the fundamental data to develop the educational programs based on the competencies in the 21st century so as to enhance their working capability.Methods: A total of 38 questionnaires were used in this study, 3 questionnaires on the general characteristics (age, service years, main job functions) and those in 11 sub-factors of basic core competencies including 4 questionnaires on creativity, 3 on collaboration, 3 on communication, 3 on interpersonal relationship, 3 on problem-solving, 4 on resource control, 4 on self- control and development, 2 on vocational ethics, 3 on knowledge information utilization, 3 on global mind, and 3 on emotional intelligence. Self-reported survey was conducted in the dental hygienists who were working in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province and a total of 195 data were analyzed.Results: Vocational ethics, communication, and collaboration showed the highest on both importance and needs with 4.49 points and 4.34; 4.41 and 4.28; and 4.39 and 4.22, respectively, while global mind showed the lowest with 3.51 and 3.59. Upon Importance-Performance Analysis, 7 items were defined to require maintain the status including vocational ethics, communication, collaboration, interpersonal relationship, self-control, emotional intelligence, and problem-solving while 4 items with lower priority were resource control and development, knowledge information utilization, creativity, and global mind.Conclusion: Based on this study results that suggested the basic core competencies of dental hygienists in alignment with their jobs in the future society, competitive dental hygienists should be developed with the educational programs applied with these competencies.