The purpose of this study was to provide basic data to standardize the clinical dental hygiene curriculum, based on analysis of current clinical dental hygiene curricula in Korea. We emailed questionnaires to 12 schools to investigate clinical dental hygiene curricula, from February to March, 2017. We analyzed the clinical dental hygiene curricula in 5 schools with a 3-year program and in 7 schools with a 4-year program. The questionnaire comprised nine items on topics relating to clinical dental hygiene, and four items relating to the dental hygiene process and oral prophylaxis. The questionnaire included details regarding the subject name, the grade/semester/credit system, course content and class hours, the number of senior professors, and the number of patients available for dental hygiene clinical training purposes. In total, there were 96 topics listed in the curricula relating to clinical dental hygiene training, and topics varied between the schools. There was an average of 20.4 topic credits, and more credits and hours were allocated to the 4-year program than to the 3-year program. On average, the ratio of students to professors was 21.4:1. Course content included infection control, concepts for dental hygiene processes, dental hygiene assessment, intervention and evaluation, case studies, and periodontal instrumentation. An average of 2 hours per patient was spent on dental hygiene practice, with an average of 1.9 visits. On average, student clinical training involved 19 patients and 26.6 patients in the 3-year and 4-year programs, respectively. The average participation time per student per topic was 38.0 hours and 53.1 hours, in the 3-year and 4-year programs, respectively. Standardizing the clinical dental hygiene curricula in Korea will require consensus guidelines on topics, the number of classes required to achieve core competencies as a dental hygienist, and theory and practice time.

The purpose of the study is to develop the integrated basic dental hygiene curriculum after reviewing and analyzing the traditional curriculum. First, the standardization of curriculum in three years and four years dental hygiene department curriculum is needed. Second, integration between subjects should include learning objectives of the curriculum. Third, the basic subjects of dental hygiene should provide and satisfy the learning goals of dental biochemistry, nutrition, dentistry and dental pharmacology, and the basic subjects should be integrated into clinical considerations. Fourth, the integration of the curriculum should make the students dental hygiene experts by nurturing and integration of basic sciences. The integration of curriculum is able to provide the unified subject that does not same and duplicated contents.

The aim of this study was to analyze in depth the standardized Clinical dental hygiene curriculum of the Fones School in the United States. We investigated the clinical dental hygiene curriculum in 2015∼2016 including title, credit, hours, contents, goals, competencies, and evaluation. We obtained the course syllabus and data related to each subject, for each grade, from the professors and students at the university. The goals and competencies, of the clinical dental hygiene program, which were based on the goals of the Fones School and the mission of the University of Bridgeport, were developed in accordance with the dental hygienist practice standards proposed by the American Dental Hygienists Association. The curriculum consisted of theory to teach proper dental hygiene care procedures and incorporated practical exercises that modeled an actual clinical setting. The students had to document the procedures performed for each client/patient and improve their clinical competency through discussion with the professors. Dental hygiene care should be provided for children, adolescents, adults, elderly, and patients, which includes patients with moderate or severe periodontal status. Students were evaluated by a paper test or case study presentation and their clinical evaluation was based on their clinical competency. In particular, professors evaluated students on a rotational basis, so they could evaluate the level of achievement of clinical competency of all students and find ways to improve any weaknesses. Therefore, the current study suggested that clinical dental hygiene program in Korea could be improved if based on the curriculum of Fones School in the United States.

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This study was conducted to provide baseline data which could suggest a direction of role based efficient integrated clinical education by avoiding duplicate of contents through analyzing clinical courses. Among the 7 clinical courses, orthodontics and periodontology were the most published subjects which were published in 5 kinds of books and dental materials was the least published subject which was published in 2 kinds of books on investigation of overlapping contents based on titles that appeared on chapters and verses of all textbooks for clinical courses. Dental implant was covered in 4 subjects such as oral maxillofacial surgery, prosthodontics, periodontology and dental materials which was the most number. Other overlapping contents were restoration treatment, occlusion and malocclusion, temporomandibular joint diseases, anesthesiaㆍsedation, tooth trauma, systemic disease and dental treatment, dental casting, isolation techniques, tooth bleaching, pulp protection, gingivitisㆍperi-odontitis, tooth development, etc. Reviews of textbooks of clinical courses should be conducted in a detailed manner by systematic, various studies in order to improve quality of the textbooks.