Mairead Corrigan

The working practices and job satisfaction of dental therapists: findings of a national survey

OBJECTIVE To describe the working practices and level of job satisfaction of dental therapists in the United Kingdom. DESIGN Postal questionnaire survey of 380 dental therapists registered with the General Dental Council. RESULTS Only 13% of dental therapists are also qualified as dental hygienists. Around 75% of those registered with the GDC are currently employed as dental therapists. Of those not currently working as dental therapists most were either working as hygienists or caring for their children at home. Over 90% of those working as therapists are employed within the Community Dental Service. About half work part-time. Part-time working is more common among respondents with childcare responsibilities. Most dental therapists are employed in clinical roles, and perform a limited range of treatments. A small proportion appear to have been asked to undertake duties which are not currently legal for them to perform. Three-quarters of those who were currently working as dental therapists had taken career breaks at some point, the most common reasons for such a break being a change in career and/or child rearing. The respondents expressed a high level of job satisfaction, particularly among older dental therapists. CONCLUSIONS Dental therapy offers a potentially rewarding career in terms of job satisfaction. Any planned increase in the numbers of training places for dental therapists should their role be expanded, for example to include working in general dental practice, would need to take cognisance of the high rate of part-time working and the proportion who could be expected to take career breaks at some point in their working lives, as is the case with female dental practitioners.

Joint and soft tissue injections in the community: questionnaire survey of general practitioners' experiences and attitudes

Objectives: To investigate the numbers and types of joint and soft tissue injections performed by general practitioners (GPs) and to explore attitudes to training in joint and soft tissue injection and perceived barriers to performing injections. Methods: A self administered questionnaire was mailed to a random sample of 410 (30%) of 1367 GPs in Northern Ireland. Two mailings were used to increase the response rate. Questions explored the GPs’ demographic characteristics, types and numbers of injections performed, previous training experience, attitudes towards training, and perceived barriers. Results: The overall response rate was 75%. Practitioners who were men, worked in a “rural” or “mixed” locality, and had had a previous post in rheumatology, orthopaedics, or sports medicine were more likely to perform joint and soft tissue injections. Forty six per cent of GPs did not currently perform any injections; 5% of GPs performed most of the injections in the community. Injections into the shoulder, knee, and lateral epicondylitis were found to be the most commonly performed injections. The GPs preferred to train on “real patients” rather than “mannequin models”. Those GPs who had trained on “real patients” were more likely to perform injections. The main perceived barrier to performing joint and soft tissue injections in the community was the “inability to maintain injection skills”. Conclusion: Postgraduate training, methods of training, and the ability to maintain injection skills seemed to be determinants affecting GP confidence and the amount of joint and soft tissue injections that they performed. Most injections were performed by a few GPs in the community. These findings may have implications for the developing role of GP specialists in primary care trusts.

Perceptions of exercise among people who have not attended cardiac rehabilitation following myocardial infarction.

Perceptions of exercise among nonattenders of cardiac rehabilitation (CR) were explored using semi-structured interviews. Analysis indicated that participants did not recognize the cardiovascular benefits of exercise, and perceived keeping active through daily activities as sufficient for health. Health professionals were perceived to downplay the importance of exercise and CR, and medication was viewed as being more important than exercise for promoting health. The content of CR programmes and the benefits of exercise need to be further explained to patients post-MI, and in a manner that communicates to patients that these programmes are valued by significant others, particularly health professionals.

The Sphere Study: Using Psychological Theory to Inform the Development of Behaviour Change Training for Primary Care Staff to Increase Secondary Prevention of Coronary Heart Disease

Abstract There is significant potential for health psychology to inform the development of health behaviour-change interventions. Yet many behavioural interventions reported in the literature are not informed by theory, fail to make explicit how theoretical constructs are operationalised and/or do not describe behaviour-change techniques in enough detail to enable replication. This paper outlines one example of a behaviour-change intervention that was informed by psychological theory, and attempts to make its constructs and techniques explicit. The intervention described is one component of a larger, multifaceted intervention study, called SPHERE, which is targeting organisational, educational and behavioural aspects of primary care on the island of Ireland to improve secondary prevention of coronary heart disease. This paper describes the development of an intervention to improve primary care practitioners’ ability to facilitate patients with coronary heart disease improve their lifestyles. The paper rev...

Interdisciplinarity defines our identity as medical educators

Medical education is a broad church. As a young interdisciplinary group of educationalists we discuss some aspects of the relevance of interdisciplinarity to medical education, using our own experiences as exemplars.