Periodontal staging and grading: An international dental hygiene education survey

The 2017 World Workshop on the Classification of Periodontal and Peri-Implant Diseases and Conditions ushered in a new paradigm for assessing and classifying periodontal diseases. This has significant implications for dental hygiene (DH) education programs' curricula. The purpose of this international survey was to assess: if and how accredited DH education programs were integrating the new staging and grading system into their curricula, and program directors' perceptions of the barriers and benefits to integration and teaching it.

This study was deemed exempt from IRB oversight. A total of 339 undergraduate DH program directors from the US, Canada and Australia that had similar accreditation standards were recruited for the survey. An electronic survey was developed and disseminated via Qualtrics^XM . Survey design included demographics and other questions to assess program directors' knowledge, understanding, integration of and barriers to implementing the new staging and grading system into their curricula.

A total of 140 surveys were completed, for a response rate of 42%. Results showed that 91% of DH education programs had integrated the new staging and grading system into their curricula. DH didactic/theory courses (99%) and clinical courses (94%) were the curricular areas hosting the content. There was a statistically significant difference in the confidence of teaching the staging and grading system across institutional settings (p = 0.02). The three main benefits identified were the consideration of expected disease progression (3.25 ± 2.06), individual risk factors (3.45 ± 1.73) and personalized treatment (4.04 ± 2.20). The most frequently reported barrier was the lack of faculty support (26%).

DH educators have implemented the new staging and grading system into their clinical and didactic curricula. DH educators valued the individual, patient-specific components of the new system. While educators were confident in integrating the new system, those at community and technical colleges were less confident in teaching the system.