Recently, the paradigm of oral care has been shifting from treatment to prevention. This thus urges a change in the dental hygienist’s role to accommodate such a shift. The purpose of this study was to propose the direction of change in dental hygienist’s legal duties and their standardized capability by conducting a comparative analysis among Korean, Canadian, and U.S hygienists. The data used for the comparison was collected through academic papers, government publications, research reports, and related web sites. Comparing the practices in three countries, this study draws the following conclusions. First, the legal definition of a dental hygienist in Korea is similar to that in Canada and the U.S. However, the legal duties of dental hygienists in Korea are not specified in detail, and their duties are more limited than that in Canada and the U.S. Furthermore, Korea has no officially announced standardized capability to build proper dental hygienist capabilities. To overcome this limitation, it is suggested that Korea needs to modify acts specifying the legal duties of a dental hygienist, as well as announce and spread standardized capabilities that reflects that change in legal duties.
Ⅰ. 서론
Ⅱ. 연구방법
Ⅲ. 연구결과
Ⅳ. 고찰
Ⅴ. 결론