Survey: Confidence and challenges in instrumentation among hygienists

Hygienists revealed their current perspectives and challenges in instrument sharpening and ergonomics in a survey conducted by RDH magazine.

Manual and power instruments are critical to ensuring safe, effective and comfortable dental care. In the survey, researchers included 473 hygienists and found a majority of the respondents felt very confident or somewhat confident in scaling techniques and their knowledge of proper scaling ergonomics and posture, while only 6% of them experienced moderate or severe pain during manual scaling.

The researchers found the most common challenge was having adequate time to sharpen hand instrumentation, and just over half of the respondents continued to use instruments that were dull or aged — despite an increased risk of occupational injury among hygienists as well as burnished calculus and discomfort among patients.

When asked why old instruments weren’t replaced, budget and time constraints were among the most cited responses. The researchers hope to further explore hygienists’ perspectives on sharpen-free instruments in future surveys.

Read more: RDH magazine

The article presented here is intended to inform you about the broader media perspective on dentistry, regardless of its alignment with the ADA's stance. It is important to note that publication of an article does not imply the ADA's endorsement, agreement, or promotion of its content.