Relevance of dental hygiene to student empathy, interpersonal skills, and clinical practice stress

Eun-Ji You , Hee-Hong Min

Abstract : Objectives: The purpose of this study is to understand the relationship between dental hygiene students’ empathy, interpersonal skills, and clinical practice stress, and to improve the system and skills necessary in the clinical practice process so that individuals can adapt to and perform their duties as dental hygienists in the future.Methods: From the date of approval until August 30, 2022, dental hygiene students who have experienced clinical practice were conveniently extracted. The sample size was was determined with G*power 3.1.9.7 program and 190 participants were included in the final analysis. Data analysis used the IBM SPSS Statistics 26.0 program.Results: Factors affecting clinical practice stress were found to be significantly related to empathic concern and personal distress, which are sub-factors of empathy, and the explanatory power was 19.7%.Conclusions: Based on the above findings, in order to reduce dental hygiene students’ clinical practice stress and improve their interpersonal skills and empathy, it is necessary to provide a systematic program tailored to the student level, and further, to improve the quality of clinical practice education through industry-academia cooperation.

Corrigendum: a study on the correlation between dental caries and dietary intake of some health program participants

Cheon-Hee Lee, Mi-Hae Yun