Influence of job autonomy on job crafting of dental hygienists.

OBJECTIVES

Job autonomy focuses on the job performance and tasks of health providers with a national licence in South Korea, which affects job crafting, to develop job competency. This study was conducted to identify the influence of job autonomy on job crafting of dental hygienists.

METHODS

This cross-sectional study included 411 dental hygienists extracted through convenience sampling from a pool of 35,000 clinical dental hygienists in South Korea. Measuring tool are Korean version of the Job Crafting Questionnaire (JCQ-K) and job autonomy questionnaire (JAQ). To investigate the level of job autonomy and crafting of dental hygienists based on their general characteristics, t-tests and one-way ANOVAs were performed. Pearson correlation was performed to determine the linear correlation between autonomy and crafting. To determine whether job autonomy affects job crafting, an adjusted regression analysis was conducted using general characteristics as control variables.

RESULTS

High job autonomy and job crafting were associated with increases in participant age with job experience as a senior staff, education level, and work environment, such as dental office or hospital. A significant positive correlation was observed (r = 0.64) between job autonomy and job crafting. Job autonomy (β = 0.58) and dental/medical hospital in university (β = 0.13) had a significant relationship with dental hygienists' job crafting.

CONCLUSIONS

Job autonomy could positively influence the job crafting of dental hygienists in South Korea. Our findings suggest that job latitude should be redesigned to promote task competency and social responsibility with a health outcome perspective for the population as well as the dental hygiene profession.