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Job satisfaction and job content in D utch dental hygienists
Author(s) -
JerkovićĆosić K,
Offenbeek MAG,
Schans CP
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
international journal of dental hygiene
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.674
H-Index - 38
eISSN - 1601-5037
pISSN - 1601-5029
DOI - 10.1111/j.1601-5037.2012.00567.x
Subject(s) - job satisfaction , autonomy , variety (cybernetics) , medicine , curriculum , scope of practice , style (visual arts) , scope (computer science) , job attitude , psychology , medical education , job performance , social psychology , pedagogy , health care , political science , archaeology , computer science , law , history , programming language , artificial intelligence
Objectives This study compares the scope of practice of Dutch dental hygienists ( DH s) educated through a 2‐ or 3‐year curriculum (‘old‐style DH s’) with that of hygienists educated through a new extended 4‐year curriculum leading to a bachelor's degree (‘new‐style DH s’), with the aim to investigate whether an extended scope of practice positively affects perceived skill variety, autonomy and job satisfaction. Methods The questionnaires were obtained from old‐ and new‐style DH s ( n = 413, response 38%; n = 219, response 59%, respectively), in which respondents had recorded their dental tasks, perceived skill variety, autonomy and job satisfaction. T ‐tests were used to analyse differences between old‐ and new‐style DH s, and regression analyses were performed to assess the relation between scope of practice and skill variety, autonomy and job satisfaction. Results New‐style DH s have a more extended scope of practice compared with old‐style DH s. Despite their more complex jobs, which are theoretically related to higher job satisfaction, new‐style DH s perceive lower autonomy and job satisfaction ( P < 0.05). Skill variety is the strongest predictor for DH s' job satisfaction ( β = 0.462), followed by autonomy ( β = 0.202) and caries decisive tasks, the last affecting job satisfaction negatively ( β = −0.149). Self‐employment is the strongest significant predictor for autonomy ( β = 0.272). Conclusions The core business of DH s remains the prevention and periodontology services. New‐style DH s combine these tasks with extended tasks in the caries field, which can lead to comparatively less job satisfaction, because of a lower experienced autonomy in performing these extended tasks.