This study investigated the relationship between the organizational culture, organizational support, organizational health, personal health, and quality of work life of dental hygienists and analyzed the factors affecting the quality of work life in order to identify ways to improve their quality of work life. A total of 320 dental hygienists completed a self-administered survey; after excluding data from 21 respondents, 299 responses were included in the analysis. Frequency analyses, t-tests, one-way analysis of variation (ANOVA), and correlation analyses were conducted. A path analysis was also conducted to confirm the causal relationships. The findings are as follows. First, there was a significant difference in several general characteristics of the organizational culture including years in the current job and the number of dental hygienists; organizational support including age and the number of dental hygienists; organizational health including years in the current job and annual salary; and personal health including annual salary. Second, the quality of work life showed a positive correlation with organizational culture, organizational support, personal health, and organizational health in that order. Third, the results of path analysis revealed that organizational culture had a positive effect on organizational support; organizational support and personal health on organizational health; organizational support on personal health; and organizational support and organizational health on quality of work life. In addition, organizational support and organizational health had a direct effect on the quality of work life, while organizational culture, organizational support, and personal health had an indirect effect. These results indicated existence of a relationship among organizational culture, organizational support, organizational health, personal health, and quality of work life. It is necessary to identify ways to improve the quality of work life of dental hygienists.

Background: Job satisfaction of dental hygienists has been discussed continuously in dental hygiene research. It has been the most representative performance variable in dental and human resource management. However, in quantitative research, most of the studies have analyzed the causal relationship with variables related to dental hygienists' job satisfaction. The existing qualitative research contains only the studies that targeted dental hygienists with an experience of more than 10 years. The present study aimed to understand and to characterize the job satisfaction of dental hygienists with an experience of 2 to 10 years and to compare it with the qualitative research on dental hygienists with an experience of 10 or more years. Methods: An in-depth interview of dental hygienists with 2 to 10 years of experience working in 10 dental clinics was conducted. For data analysis, Giorgi's analysis method was used. Results: After analyzing the meaning of job satisfaction of dental hygienists, 180 semantic words and 19 subcategories were derived. The results of the interview were categorized into for central meanings: recognition and rewards, work experience and ability improvement, occupational characteristics, and work characteristics. Recognition and rewards included workplace recognition, patient recognition, self-effort and recognition, and the feeling of being rewarded. Work experience and ability improvement included various work experiences and factors relates to improving the work ability. Occupational characteristics included professional job, interest and persistence, job extensibility, and no burden of employment. Work characteristics included working conditions and separation of work and private life. Conclusion: The development of tools to measure the level of dental hygienists' job satisfaction after long-term service and to conduct follow-up research regarding ways and effects to improve job satisfaction is needed.

Background: This study is to identify the factors that affect job satisfaction, psychological ownership, and job engagement of dental hygienists on job performance and use them as basic data for manpower management of dental hygienists. Methods: The survey was conducted by 344 clinical dental hygienists working in dental medical institutions. The collected data is PASW Statistics ver. 20.0 was used to analyze. Results: The job satisfaction level of the dental hygienist was 3.38±0.52, and the question that 'I feel that my ability to solve problems has improved compared to the past.' was 3.92±0.80. There were significant differences in job satisfaction, psychological ownership, and job engagement according to general characteristics in age, marriage, education, career, current work experience, and position. There were significant differences in job performance according to general characteristics in age, marriage, education, career, current work experience, position, and number of dental hygienists. Factors influencing job performance were practical activities, income, patient relations, absorption, vigor, dedication, and the number of dental hygienists. Conclusion: Finding different ways to use psychological ownership and job engagement through the job satisfaction of a dental hygienist, and to and to utilize it as basic data for efficient manpower management through job performance.