Department of Dental Hygiene, Texas Woman's University, Denton, TX, USA.
Int J Dent Hyg. 2012 May;10(2):128-37. doi: 10.1111/j.1601-5037.2011.00526.x. Epub 2011 Aug 21.
At the beginning of the 20th century, people 65 and older comprised 4.1% of the population. By the year 2030, it is estimated that people 65 and older, the 'Baby Boomer' generation, will comprise more than 20% of the population. This will have a profound effect on the practice of dentistry and on society as a whole. The purpose of this study was to determine whether dental hygienists in Texas felt prepared and willing to treat the elderly in alternative practice settings such as nursing homes.
After institutional review board approval, a questionnaire was mailed to 500 hygienists. A 5% systematic sample of dental hygiene graduates was taken from four dental hygiene schools in Texas, United States of America (USA). Of these, 175 were returned for a 35% response rate. Questions asked were degree held, how prepared the participants felt to treat the special needs of the elderly, if participants were willing to work in alternative practice settings such as a nursing home and if they felt additional education was needed. Frequency distributions, correlations and chi square were used to analyse the data.
Results revealed 86.5% of the respondents felt prepared to somewhat prepared to treat the special needs of the elderly based on education; equally, 86.5% felt more education was needed to better prepare them to treat the elderly. Over half of the respondents would not be willing to work in alternative practice settings such as nursing homes.
The average respondents do not feel fully prepared to treat the elderly with special needs, and they think more education is needed to better prepare them to treat this important target population.
在 20 世纪初，65 岁及以上的人口占总人口的 4.1%。到 2030 年，预计 65 岁及以上的“婴儿潮一代”将占总人口的 20%以上。这将对牙科实践和整个社会产生深远的影响。本研究旨在确定德克萨斯州的牙科保健员是否愿意在养老院等替代实践环境中为老年人提供治疗，并确定他们是否认为自己在这些环境中接受过充分的培训。
在机构审查委员会批准后，向 500 名保健员邮寄了一份问卷。从美国德克萨斯州的四所牙科卫生学校中抽取了 5%的牙科卫生学毕业生作为系统样本。其中，有 175 人返回，应答率为 35%。问卷中询问了他们的学位、对治疗老年人特殊需求的准备程度、是否愿意在替代实践环境（如养老院）工作以及是否认为需要额外的教育。使用频率分布、相关性和卡方检验来分析数据。
结果显示，86.5%的受访者认为自己在接受教育的基础上，已经准备好或基本准备好治疗老年人的特殊需求；同样，86.5%的人认为需要更多的教育来更好地准备他们治疗老年人。超过一半的受访者不愿意在替代实践环境（如养老院）工作。
平均受访者认为自己没有完全准备好治疗有特殊需求的老年人，并且他们认为需要更多的教育来更好地准备他们治疗这一重要目标人群。
