Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Availability

Open Access Thesis

Keywords

Dental hygienists--Health and hygiene; Dental hygienists--Attitudes;

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between dental hygienists' professional preventive behaviors and their personal health behaviors. It was hypothesized that there would be a positive correlation between the professional and personal preventive behaviors of dental hygienists . The subjects of this study were 141 dental hygienists who were randomly selected from a list of licensed dental hygienists in Iowa. A questionnaire was designed by the researcher to be used to determine the extent to which dental hygienists practice selected personal health behaviors and professional preventive behaviors. After a review of the questionnaire by a panel of experts, a pilot study was conducted. Two scales, a 29 item scale of professional preventive behaviors and a 22 item scale of personal health behaviors, were developed. Information on demographic characteristics was collected to establish the similarity of subjects with other dental hygienists in Iowa, and to examine the relationship of demographic characteristics with the scores on the preventive behaviors scale. A Pearson correlation coefficient indicated a significant, positive relationship between the scores on the Professional Preventive Behaviors Scale and scores on the Personal Health Behaviors Scale. A significant correlation also existed between scores on the Professional Preventive Behaviors Scale and five demographic characteristics. In addition, a step-wise multiple linear regression analysis indicated that four demographic characteristics were significant predictors of dental hygienists' professional preventive behaviors.

Year of Submission

1986

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Department

School of Health, Physical Education, and Recreation

First Advisor

Dennis Cryer

Second Advisor

Gene Lutz

Third Advisor

Jane E. Richards

Comments

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Date Original

1986

Object Description

1 PDF file (82 leaves)

Language

en

File Format

application/pdf

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