Exploring dental operators' perceptions of their clinical tasks

Clinical variation is a result of the complex interaction of operator, operating environment and client variables. This study explores intra-operator characteristics by applying a technique from psychology known as Repertory Grid to New Zealand dental therapists, in order to elicit the ways in which they view their work. Individual interviews were conducted with 13 dental therapists to elicit the full range of tasks that they perform and the various ways that they describe them. Each therapist then rated her own work activities or tasks on her personal set of bipolar descriptions (personal constructs). Principal components analyses of each individual's set of ratings produced graphs which portrayed the pattern of meanings which therapists attributed to their work activities. Common features among the 13 therapists' work perceptions were then identified and categorised according to five types of variables (therapist, client, procedural, time and interpersonal). Common features included operator perceptions of painfulness of procedures, complexity of decision-making, interaction with people, stress for the therapist, preventive care for the client, routineness of task and challenge for the therapist. This detailed information gives a better understanding of the complex ways in which therapists view their tasks and therefore make decisions in the clinical setting. It could be conveniently used to develop a questionnaire to assess the empirical relationships between intra-operator factors and clinical outputs.