Operational Status of Continuing Education for Dental Hygienists: Five-Year Analysis

Background: Continuing education is essential for dental hygienists to maintain professional competence and strengthen their job-related competencies.However, previous studies have primarily focused on satisfaction with continuing education programs and there have been limited analyses of their actual operational status.Therefore, this study aimed to analyze the operational status of continuing education programs for dental hygienists over the past five years and to provide foundational data for future quality improvement and policy and institutional reforms.Methods: This study analyzed the operational status of on-site and online continuing education programs provided on the Korean Dental Hygienists Association website between 2021 and July 2025.This analysis included organizing institutions, years of education, instructor professions, course classification, continuing education credits, experience level, and education topics.Continuing education topics were classified as basic, clinical, social, educational, ethical, and general through consensus among the researchers.Data were analyzed using SPSS version 28.0 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA), and frequency analysis and chi-squared tests were performed.The statistical significance level was set at 0.05.Results: In on-site continuing education programs, regional branches accounted for the highest proportion at 48.5% and clinical topics accounted for the largest proportion at 70.8% and 68.9% in on-site and online continuing education programs, respectively.Overall, both the on-site and online continuing education programs showed a clinically oriented operational pattern.Conclusion: Over the past five years, continuing education programs for dental hygienists have shown a clinically oriented operational pattern in both on-site and online education.These findings suggest the need to consider a more balanced composition of continuing education topics that reflects common core competencies and changes in the healthcare environment.