Date of Award

Fall 1995

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Dental Hygiene

Program/Concentration

Dental Hygiene

Committee Director

Michele L. Darby

Committee Member

Pamela P. Brangan

Committee Member

Beverly Entwistle Isman

Call Number for Print

Special Collections LD4331.D46 D86

Abstract

The purposes of this study were to determine if a relationship exists between levels of dentist supervision and the ability of dental hygienists in nontraditional settings to provide care, and to ascertain differences in the ability of dental hygienists practicing in legal jurisdictions with direct, indirect, general, and no dentist supervision. The Dental Hygiene supervision in Nontraditional settings Questionnaire (DHSNSQ) was sent to a purposive sample consisting of dental hygienists employed in nontraditional settings within one of the four levels of dentist supervision. The levels of dentist supervision were based on criteria, education, and competence, stipulated by each of the State Dental Practice Acts. The DHSNSQ elicited descriptive data from a sample of 123 dental hygienists currently employed in nontraditional practice settings.

The questionnaire was divided into two sections, "Supervision" and "Demographics." Data obtained in the "Supervision" portion was analyzed using Kendall's Tau b measure of association. Results suggest that dental hygienists employed in practice settings with general and no dentist supervision feel most confident about their abilities to provide dental hygiene services for their clients. Low associations were found between level of dentist supervision and the variables of overall quality of dental hygiene care, access to dental hygiene care, cost effectiveness of care, ability to provide care to clients, opportunity to utilize dental hygiene skills and education, freedom to decide how care is provided, time efficiency of providing care, and professional relationship with patients.

Rights

In Copyright. URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).

DOI

10.25777/r7h4-sq51

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