Dental hygienists in Scotland – a career survey

Key Points

This study of dental hygienists in Scotland found that:

• 70% work mainly in general dental practice

• 39% have refused employment because of poor pay

• They stay in the same post for an average of 7.4 years

• They show no net movement into or out of Scotland

• They retire early in about a third of cases

Abstract

Objective To study career patterns of dental hygienists in Scotland

Subjects and methods Questionnaires were sent to all the dental hygienists enrolled with the General Dental Council in 1998 who had addresses in Scotland and those who were alumni of Scottish Schools of Dental Hygiene within the past 10 years.

Results There was a 58.7% response (334 out of 569). A net loss of trained hygienists was not found. The results suggested that most would remain in employment for at least 30 years and about a third would retire early. Half were in full-time employment and 60% had been in continuous employment. Most of the remainder had personal reasons for ceasing work. 39% had refused employment because of the poor level of pay.

Conclusions The introduction of the 2-year course has reduced output from Schools of Dental Hygiene and demand for hygienists is high. Little hard information exists to support manpower planning in this area. This study suggests that there is little wastage of trained dental hygienists in Scotland. More data is required concerning employment opportunities and potential unmet demand for this group of PCDs to establish the number of training places required.

Main

Career patterns of dental hygienists in Scotland by P. D. Callis and B. G. Wohlgemuth Br Dent J 2000; 189: 34–36

Comment

This paper about career patterns of dental hygienists in Scotland is timely with the introduction of the Scottish Parliament and its subsequent responsibility for healthcare delivery in Scotland. The point was made that to date very little information is known about the career patterns of dental hygienists thus making future manpower planning difficult.

This study was designed specifically to address this problem by providing up-to-date data on career patterns and establishing if there was a typical career pattern for hygienists. This would also enable manpower planning to be undertaken with some degree of effectiveness rather than the haphazard method as at present.

Although a response rate of only 58.7% was achieved, it is still possible to gain information from the group. Interestingly there was a peak of respondents in the 30–39 year age group which was unexpected in the light of the study population which includes the students qualifying from the three Scottish Schools within the last 10 years.

It was gratifying to see that the majority of respondents stayed in Scotland longterm after training which should be encouraging to the planners when considering investing money in PCD training in Scotland, particularly in the light of new legislation being introduced.

The results on working patterns of hygienists were again interesting with the suggestion that hygienists tended to work now in full-time posts rather than as suggested in previous studies, multiple part-time posts. However, there may have been some misinterpretation of the questionnaire and this needs to be clarified. They also showed that the majority of respondents worked in general dental practice and it was most interesting to note that up to the age of 39 most hygienists had worked continuously.

The issue of pay was addressed with dissatisfaction being high in all areas of the dental service but particularly in the hospital services. This obviously has implications for recruitment and retention and must be taken seriously when the pay structure is revisited.

Finally, in the light of the recent publicity surrounding recommendations concerning expanded duties and new classes of PCDs it is not surprising that retraining in the areas of dental therapy and orthodontics was of interest to the majority of hygienists. It is hoped that these new skills would be used in addition to existing skills and not in place of them.

A follow-up study to further investigate many of these areas would be a worthwhile exercise.