Michigan's PA161 Dental Prevention Program: Students’, Faculty and Hygienists’ Perspectives

Objective: Access to oral health care services is a major challenge for patients from socio-economically disadvantaged and/or minority backgrounds. One way to increase access to care for underserved patients is to engage dental hygienists in providing services for these patients. In Michigan, Public Act No. 161 (PA 161) was approved in 2005 allowing dental hygienists to provide preventive dental hygiene services to underserved patients. The objectives of this study were to assess how familiar and informed dental and dental hygiene students and faculty, and dental hygienists in Michigan are concerning PA 161, which attitudes they hold, what they know about PA 161, and how interested they are to learn more about it. The relationships between education/familiarity with PA 161, and the respondents' attitudes, knowledge and interests are explored as well.

Method: Data were collected from 160 dental students and 30 faculty as well as from 206 dental hygiene students and 54 faculty members and 95 practicing dental hygienists.

Result: Dental students were less familiar and educated/informed about PA 161 than dental hygiene students, and dental faculty were less informed than dental hygiene faculty members and dental hygienists. Dental hygiene faculty and dental hygienists held more positive attitudes towards PA 161 than students and dental faculty. The majority of dental hygiene faculty and dental hygienists knew a person who provides services under PA 161 and a program that is possible because of PA 161. The majority of dental hygiene students, faculty and dental hygienists were interested in more information about PA 161 programs. The more familiar and informed respondents were about PA 161, the better their attitudes were and the more interested they were in learning more about this program.

Conclusion: Providing more information about PA 161 in educational settings as well as through media is likely to affect providers' attitudes and interest in this program positively.