Dental Learners’ Perceptions Regarding Expanded Functions for Dental Hygienists

North Carolina’s (NC) state legislature has granted dental hygienists (DHs) expanded functions, including the administration of local anesthesia, as a part of NC Senate Bill 146. The purpose of the study was to gather the attitudes and opinions of current dental learners on their clinical experiences with dental hygiene (DH) learners who have completed local anesthesia training and to gain insight into the possible future utilization of DHs with expanded functions in NC. Purposeful sampling was used to survey third year (DDS3) and fourth year (DDS4) dental learners at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Adams School of Dentistry. The survey collected demographic and background information, knowledge about the DH profession, experiences with DH learners in the clinical setting, and attitudes regarding expanded functions. Univariate, bivariate, and inductive coding were used to analyze survey results. Survey participants (n=75) included 39 DDS3 and 36 DDS4 learners at ASOD. The majority (66.7%) of the respondents reported having shared clinical experiences with DH learners, however only 12% reported working with DHs with expanded functions. Learners reported favorable opinions on the potential benefits of working with expanded function DHs in future practice related to willingness to hire (86.5%) and willingness to utilize for scaling and root planing (91.9%) or restorative procedures (78.4%). Respondents expressed agreement that utilizing expanded function DHs would increase future practice efficiency (91.9%) and outputs (91.9%). Dental learners expressed limited current knowledge and experience regarding DHs with expanded functions. DHs with expanded function were perceived as generally positive additions to the dental team due to the potential for increase in practice efficiency.