The Influence of Dental Hygienist Images and Career Advice among High School Teachers

Chung, Kyung Yi

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of dental hygienist images and career advice among high school teachers. A self-reported questionnaire was administered to 212 high school teachers in Gwangju, South Korea. The questionnaire contained subject's general characteristics, images of dental hygienists, and career advice. We performed an independent t-test, the Kruskal-Wallis test, Pearson's correlation coefficient, multiple regression analysis, and logistic regression analysis using the IBM SPSS ver. 21.0 software. Using a five-point scale, the average of all the dental hygienist images was 3.50, with personal images receiving the most positive rating at 3.83 and social images receiving the least positive rating at 2.86. The images of dental hygienists were significantly more positive in instances where the subjects recognized the dental hygienist or received treatment within one year. There were positive correlations among different kinds of images. Through multiple regression analysis, occupational images were associated with business and social images. Business images were associated with occupational and personal images. Personal images were associated with business images, especially in cases where the subjects recognized the dental hygienist. Social images were associated with occupational images, especially in cases where subjects received treatment within one year. Through logistic regression analysis, career advice was associated with social and occupational images. Therefore, our study provides suggestions on how to enhance positive recognition of social images of dental hygienists.