ABSTRACT
The purpose of this study was to assess dental hygienists' awareness of medical technician jurisprudence. The study was conducted over a 2-month period from March 1 to May 1, 2016. A self-reported questionnaire was completed by 201 dental hygienists in Seoul, Gyeonggi, and Incheon province. The questionnaire consisted of items on the awareness of the jurisprudence pertaining to medical technician jurisprudence. Data were analyzed using the IBM SPSS Statistics ver. 19.0 program. We found that 32.8% of the respondents were aware of medical technician jurisprudence. Low awareness that result was due to “insufficient public relations efforts.” The respondents thought that medical technician jurisprudence are inefficient in clinical settings. Of the dental hygienists, 75.9% replied that task distribution was unclear and 40.0% lacked awareness of the distribution of dentists' duties (40.0%). A total of 59.8% of respondents showed intention to participate in medical jurisprudence seminars. Of the dental hygienists, 77.0% agreed with the insert dental hygienists under medical jurisprudence category. In conclusion, dental hygienists' awareness of medical technician jurisprudence should be improved. In addition, the dental hygienist jurisprudence need to be revised regarding job status.