How Swedish dental hygienists apply their training program in the field

The purpose of this study was to evaluate how clinical practice by Swedish dental hygienists was related to type of dental delivery system, period of training, educational institution attended and patient category. Dental hygienists from 14 different dental hygiene schools were represented. Of these schools, 11 are still in operation. A specially designed questionnaire was posted to all dental hygienists in Sweden (n = 1857). A total of 1399 questionnaire (75.3%) were completed and returned, providing data on 15,546 dental appointments. 37.2% of the Swedish dental hygienists are presently working in private practices, 45.8% in the public dental health service and 6.2% in both. Of the patients treated by hygienists, 88.7% were adults: 99.5% in private practice and 78.4% in the public dental health service. 42.0% of all dental hygienists were trained in 1980-84. The mean treatment time per appointment in private practice was 49.7 min and 45 min in the public dental health service. Scaling, root-planning and removal of overhangs took 27 min per visit in private practice and 22 min in the public dental health service. However, there were no significant differences in methods in the two delivery systems with respect to examinations, self-care training, professional mechanical toothcleaning (PMTC), topical fluoride application, or salivary and oral microbiology tests. The adult patient categories were periodontal risk (45.1%), caries risk (9.1%) and hygiene (34.6%). In periodontal risk patients, scaling, root-planning and removal of overhangs took 28 min per appointment and 14 min in caries risk patients.