| The purpose of the research project was to determine the number of United States (U.S.) dental hygiene (DH) programs having full-time (FT) faculty members who provide direct patient care. A pilot-tested questionnaire was placed on Survey Monkey, a survey website. Two-hundred and seventy-eight U.S. DH program directors received two E-mails requesting their participation. A response rate of 69.1 % was achieved and showed that 14.2% of the programs required FT faculty members to provide direct patient care while 67.0% of the programs had faculty members who participated. The majority (95.4%) of directors indicated maintaining clinical skills and current clinical techniques as advantages of faculty participation in direct patient care, while 48% of directors indicated participation takes time away from being an educator. Overall, the majority of DH programs did not require FT faculty members to participate in direct patient care; however, over half of the programs had faculty members who participated. |
