2021 Volume 71 Issue 2 Pages 72-80
The shortage of dental hygienists is a problem in Japanese dental clinics. We examined the reasons for dental hygienist turnover based on the occupational stress model, which is an important concept in the field of occupational health, and analyzed the differences in perceptions between dental hygienists and dentists. In this cross-sectional study, a mail-based questionnaire survey was conducted in 2017, sent to 1,334 dental hygienists and 1,185 dentists in Miyagi Prefecture. The questions were based on six stress models. The differences between the answers of the dental hygienists and dentists were analyzed using the chi-square test. Among 313 dental hygienists (response rate: 23.5%) and 213 dentists (response rate: 18.0%), we used the data of 303 and 174 respondents, respectively, with no missing values. The major reasons for the turnover of dental hygienists were “personality conflict issues (78.2%),” “long working hours (68.6%),” and “low salary (58.4%).” However, dentists were significantly less likely to think that these were the causes for hygienists leaving their jobs; most dentists considered “maternity leave” as the main reason. Regarding personality conflict issues, most dental hygienists answered that the director dentist was the cause. In contrast, dentists thought that staff were the cause of the problem. Regarding working hours, both hygienists and dentists answered that “long working hours” was a problem. However, in addition, hygienists also considered the difficulty of taking paid leave and overtime work as problems. Most dental hygienists who were unemployed wanted to return to work part-time, and many wanted to avoid working afternoon hours. There was a large difference of opinion between dentists and dental hygienists in terms of recognizing workplace problems in relation to reasons for job turnover. Recognizing and resolving these issues in dental practices may lead to more suitable work environments for dental hygienists.
