The impact of General Dental Council registration and continuing professional development on UK dental care professionals: (1) dental nurses

Abstract

Objective: To investigate the impact of GDC registration and mandatory CPD on dental nurses' views, job satisfaction and intention to leave. Design: Postal/online survey, conducted in parallel with a survey of dental technicians. Setting: UK private and NHS practices, community services, dental hospitals. Subjects and methods: Representative sample of General Dental Council registrants. Main outcome measures: Job satisfaction; intention to leave profession (dependent variable in regression analysis). Results: Eleven were ineligible (left profession, moved abroad); 267 (44% of those eligible) responded, all female. Respondents' mean age was 38.2 years (sd 10.74). The general principle of registration was endorsed by 67%, and compulsory registration by 51%, but the fee level by only 6%. Most nurses did not feel that registration had affected their view of dental nursing as a career (56%), their role (74%) or status (86%) within the dental team, or that CPD helped them to do their job better (76%). Fiftly-six percent were not satisfied with their job, and 22% intended to leave the profession. Intention to leave was predicted by younger age and greater dissatisfaction with physical working conditions and opportunities to progress. Conclusions: Widely held criticisms regarding the costs and relevance of registration and CPD coupled with a potentially high level of attrition from the profession suggest a review of the fee and salary structure and greater financial support for CPD is warranted. © 2012 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved.