The increase of HIV/AIDS patients requiring health care has direct implications for dental hygiene education programs and effective college teaching in those programs. Little documentation of the issues of HIV in dental hygiene education and practice have occurred. Research design was exploratory, quantitative and descriptive. A mail questionnaire was conducted on all 1992 Massachusetts dental hygiene program graduates. Response rate was 70%. Results of data analysis with respect to HIV/AIDS attitudes and educational process indicate that program graduates: (a) are willing to provide care to HIV/AIDS patients despite a perception of high risk for occupational exposure due to their work, (b) believe faculty influenced their attitudes about providing care to HIV patients, (c) want more educational opportunities to interact with psycho-social elements of HIV, (d) want interactive, two-way dialogue approaches to learning about HIV/AIDS as well as traditional lecture formats, (e) define the interpersonal and relational elements in effective college teaching as important in this learning context, and that (f) no one AIDS education experience made a difference in terms of attitudes toward providing care but a combination of multiple experiences did influence attitudes toward HIV. Negative attitudes were held about receiving care from HIV infected dental hygiene practitioners and about working in an office that employs an HIV positive hygienist. Risk from HIV/AIDS had not caused the respondents to consider leaving the field of dental hygiene. Findings contribute to dental hygiene and other health care educator work in policy, curriculum, and faculty development and suggest that multiple and multi-dimensional AIDS education experiences be included in the curriculum, that faculty development in HIV/AIDS education and effective college teaching occur, and that communication of program HIV/AIDS philosophies, policies, and protocols be included in clinical handbooks and regular faculty-student communication vehicles. Suggestions for further study include replication of the study with additional classes of graduates as well as national and different geographic region samples, assessment of HIV/AIDS education experiences and instructional methodologies in dental hygiene education programs, and qualitative research on how HIV/AIDS clinical treatment experiences affect learner knowledge, skill and value about providing health care.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UMASS/oai:scholarworks.umass.edu:dissertations-8999 |
| Date | 01 January 1994 |
| Creators | Iverson, Annmarie |
| Publisher | ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst |
| Source Sets | University of Massachusetts, Amherst |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Source | Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest |
Page generated in 0.002 seconds