2025, Vol.25, No.6

Journal of Korean society of Dental Hygiene 2025 KCI Impact Factor : 1.22

pISSN : 2287-1705 / eISSN : 2288-2294
https://journal.kci.go.kr/jksdh

Objectives: Japan’s rapid transition into a super-aging society has reshaped oral health needs and dental hygiene education. This study aims to examine the evolution of Japan’s gerodontology and dental hygiene education within the context of longterm care reforms and expanding professional roles. Methods: A literature-based review was conducted by synthesizing national policies, legal regulations, and educational guidelines to analyze structural changes in gerodontology education. Results: Policy reforms, particularly the establishment and revision of the long-term care Insurance system accelerated. Educational reforms followed these systemic changes, culminating in the 2022 Educational Principles of Dental Hygienist in Gerodontology. However, persistent challenges remain, including limited clinical training sites, shortages of qualified instructors, inconsistencies in practicum content, and insufficient interprofessional education. Conclusions: Japan’s experience demonstrate the importance of aligning gerodontology education. These findings suggest that Korea would benefit from standardized, competency-based gerodontology curriculum to better prepare practitioner for an aging society.

Objectives: The curriculum redesign process within the University of British Columbia’s (UBC) Dental Hygiene Degree Program (DHDP) involved the creation of new curriculum in social entrepreneurship, advocacy, and interprofessional education. Thus the research question was: where can curriculum spaces be found for the new renewal themes? Methods: The DHDP course and section coordinators (n=16) were invited to a three-round Delphi study to explore curriculum spaces. Round 1 asked participants to identify curriculum spaces. Round 2 asked participants to rate their agreement with the round 1 items. Round 3 asked participants to rank items for implementation. Results: The response rate was 81% in round 1, 56% in round 2, and 69% in round 3. Consensus was reached to create spaces within (a) biomedical sciences, (b) statistics, oral epidemiology, and literature reviews, and (c) theory and practice. Twenty-six hours were found for social entrepreneurship and 24 hours for advocacy curriculum. Conclusions: Curriculum spaces were found but the redesign process can be challenging as faculty may experience a loss of their expertise. The findings of this study are specific to UBC’s program. However, the spaces found, and the lessons learned will likely resonate with faculty members across the health professions.

Objective: Interprofessional education (IPE) promotes effective collaboration among healthcare professionals and has been increasingly implemented in Korea. And a Korean-style IPE assessment tool was recently developed but has not been implemented in practice. Therefore, this study applied the newly developed assessment tool to real-life educational settings to evaluate its effectiveness. Methods: Seven university departments participated in the IPE course. A total of 62 students and seven professors used the IPE assessment tool, which was developed in a previous study, to evaluate the core IPE competencies, before and after the program. Results: After the IPE course, the scores increased from 4.5 to 4.7 in the learning stage and from 4.4 to 4.7 in the behavior stage. Subsequent stage scores were also high: 4.7 in the reaction stage, 4.6 in the professor result stage, and 4.8 in the team member result stage. In the learning stage, ‘Values/ethics for inter-professional practic’ and ‘Roles/responsibilities,’ significantly increased, and in the behavior stage, all competencies significantly increased. Learning, behavior, and reaction stages were positively correlated, as were the four core competencies, with moderate-to-high correlations. Conclusions: In this study, a newly developed Korean-style IPE assessment tool was evaluated, and it was confirmed that the IPE program at the target university significantly improved the core competencies of participating students in the learning and action stages.