As awareness of the importance of preventive oral healthcare has spread in the domestic dental community in recent years, the role of dental hygienists has become more important. This change in perception requires a shift from simple treatment-focused to prevention-focused, and as a result, expectations for dental hygienists’ jobs and expertise have increased [1]. The dental community has a growing consensus that dental hygienists should be key personnel for education and preventive activities to promote oral health. Moreover, it has been argued that strengthening the professional expertise of dental hygienists should improve the quality of dental care services [2].

Dental hygienists provide various preventive services to maintain and improve patients’ oral health. They contribute to promoting the public’s oral health by performing roles such as oral hygiene management, scaling, preventive treatment, and dental treatment assistance [3]. Dental hygienists’ work is based on their education and training. Although they perform their duties under the direction of a dentist, they have the expertise to take preventive measures independently. As their roles have recently expanded, they enter fields requiring specialized knowledge and skills [1].

Network analysis is increasingly becoming an important tool for analyzing research trends and relationships between topics in many academic fields. It is a method of analyzing data that focuses on the relationships between objects. It differs from conventional statistical methods that analyze only individual attributes of objects. A major advantage of the method is that it enables the identification of meaningful relationships and patterns that are difficult to capture using conventional analysis methods. Because of these characteristics, network analysis is useful for exploring complex intellectual structures and understanding research trends more in-depth [4,5].

This study aims to identify current research trends and major interests by analyzing domestic dental hygienist-related studies. The topics derived through the topic modeling analysis method are expected to be used as reference data for future dental hygienist research.

1. Subjects

This study found 989 papers through the Korea Citation Index (KCI) search service [6] using the paper title dental hygienist and the keyword dental hygienist. Among the 989 papers, we reviewed the titles and keywords in the abstracts and excluded papers whose paper titles were not suitable for the analysis purpose and papers that did not include dental hygienist in the keywords in the abstract, leaving a total of 748 papers as the analysis subjects. The collected data was organized using the Excel 2016 program (Microsoft, Redmond, WA, USA).

2. Methods

This study analyzed academic papers collected from the KCI [6] using Cyram’s NetMiner Version 4.4.1 [7].

NetMiner is a very useful tool for topic modeling and keyword analysis and can efficiently process and analyze complex text data. It allows users to visually understand research trends and relationships between topics and derive important insights [8].

After refining the collected data, only keywords with a TF-IDF (Term Frequency Inverse Document Frequency) coefficient of 0.5 or higher were extracted, and latent main keywords and topics were derived using the LDA algorithm.

1. Status of published papers

This paper searched for the KCI service among domestic dental hygienist-related papers. As of July 2024, a total of 748 academic papers containing ‘dental hygienist’ as keywords in the title and abstract were found. The number of published papers has increased rapidly since 2015, with more than 50 published per year. Figure 1 shows the treand of changes in the number of papers on dental hygienists by year.

Figure 1. The trend of the number of papers by year.

2. Data analysis

For data analysis, the NetMiner 4.4.1 program was used for keyword network and topic modeling analyses.

1) Keyword network analysis

A frequency analysis of the main keywords appearing in domestic papers on dental hygienists identified the top 20 keywords, such as job, satisfaction, health, dental, stress, intention, turnover, and infection (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Keyword frequency analysis.

The network map between keywords showed that job, dental, satisfaction, work, education, and health were the keywords that were at the center of the network and had the highest proportion of node size (Figure 3).

Figure 3. Network map between keywords.

2) Topic modeling analysis

The topic modeling of 748 academic papers on dental hygienists identified four topics. LDA topic modeling analysis was performed to identify latent major topics and keywords. Table 1 shows the major keywords for each topic. Figure 4 shows the visualization results of the keyword network for each topic.

Figure 4. Visualization for exami-nation at a glance.

Table 1 . Results of topic modeling analysis

Topic Name		Topic-1		Topic-2		Topic-3		Topic-4
		Job stress and satisfaction		Infection control and radiation safety		Job performance and organizational commitment		Education and job ability
No.		Keywords	Prob	Keywords	Prob	Keywords	Prob	Keywords	Prob
1		Dental	0.069	Health	0.109	Job	0.053	Job	0.132
2		Infection	0.061	Care	0.054	Work	0.052	Satisfaction	0.082
3		Control	0.054	Oral	0.049	Satisfaction	0.047	Intention	0.048
4		Practice	0.036	Education	0.034	Environment	0.035	Turnover	0.043
5		Safety	0.028	Dental	0.034	Clinical	0.020	Stress	0.040
6		Clinic	0.027	Medical	0.032	Working	0.020	Organizational	0.032
7		Management	0.025	Service	0.023	Disorder	0.018	Emotional	0.027
8		Student	0.024	Insurance	0.022	System	0.017	Commitment	0.027
9		Knowledge	0.024	Awareness	0.021	Musculoskeletal	0.017	Professional	0.019
10		Hygiene	0.018	Hygiene	0.017	Stress	0.017	labor	0.018
No. of Articles (%)		176 (23.5)		174 (23.3)		164 (21.7)		236 (31.6)

Topic-1, which comprised keywords such as dental, infection, control, practice, safety, and management, was named Job Stress and Satisfaction. One hundred seventy-six papers addressed the topic, accounting for 23.5% of all papers, the second-highest proportion among the four topics. The papers’ main content was a study on dental hygienists’ job stress and satisfaction, with the work environment and psychological factors as the main subjects of analysis.

Topic-2, which comprised keywords such as health, care, oral, education, dental, and medical, was named Infection Control and Radiation Safety. The topic was the subject of 174 papers, accounting for 23.3% of all theses, and it ranked third highest among the four topics. The papers’ main content was a study on the knowledge and practice of dental hygienists regarding infection control and radiation safety management.

Topic-3, which comprised keywords such as job, work, satisfaction, environment, and clinical, was named Job Performance and Organizational Commitment. The topic was the subject of 162 papers, accounting for 21.7% of all papers. The paper’s main contents were a study on dental hygienists’ job performance and organizational commitment of dental hygienists and an analysis of the influence of organizational culture and leadership.

Topic-4, which comprised keywords such as job, satisfaction, intention, turnover, stress, and work, was named Education and Job Competency. The topic was the subject of 236 papers, accounting for 31.6% of all theses, and it ranked the highest among the four topics.

The papers’ main contents were a study on the education and improvement of dental hygienists’ job skills and an analysis of the effects of educational programs and practice.

Dental hygienists are professional workers who promote oral health by providing oral health education, preventive dental treatment, dental treatment cooperation, and management support to local residents and people with dental diseases. They are mainly responsible for the prevention of dental and oral diseases and hygiene management in accordance with the Act on Medical Technologists. Through these tasks, dental hygienists play an important role in promoting the public’s oral health and reducing the incidence of dental and oral diseases [9].

This study analyzed the research trends on dental hygienists by analyzing the frequency of major keywords and topic modeling analysis using LDA with the NetMiner 4.4.1 program on academic papers collected from the KCI [6].

The analysis showed that the main keywords appearing in domestic papers on dental hygienists were job, satisfaction, health, dental, stress, intention, turnover, and infection. The topic modeling identified a total of 4 topics: Topic-1) Job stress and satisfaction, Topic-2) Infection control and radiation safety, Topic-3) Job performance and organizational commitment, and Topic-4) Education and job ability.

The keywords of Topic-1 Job stress and satisfaction were dental, infection, control, practice, safety, and management. The main content was studies on dental hygienists’ job stress and satisfaction, and the work environment and psychological factors were the main analysis subjects.

Kim [10] analyzed the effects of dental hygienists’ job stress and satisfaction on their intention to change jobs. The study reported that the smoother organizational communication is, the higher the job satisfaction, which had a positive effect on lowering the intention to change jobs.

Jung and Song [11] analyzed the job stress factors of dental hygienists and sought ways to increase job satisfaction, and Kim et al. [12] revealed that job demands, relationship conflicts, organizational systems, and inappropriate compensation significantly affected the job stress of dental hygienists. The results showed, in particular, that the physical environment and job demands were closely related to central nervous system symptoms.

These studies analyzed the impact of dental hygienists’ job stress on their job satisfaction and provided reference data for improving their work efficiency. The results also suggested that improving the work environment and stress management of dental hygienists is important in increasing job satisfaction.

The keywords of Topic-2, Infection control and radiation safety, were health, care, oral, education, dental, and medical. The main content was a study on the knowledge and practice of dental hygienists regarding infection control and radiation safety management.

Research on infection control and radiation safety by dental hygienists is a very important topic in the dental care environment.

Jang et al. [13] investigated the perception and knowledge of radiation exposure among dental hygienists working on dental radiography and analyzed the management status and job stress of radiation exposure. The study results showed that wearing protective gear against radiation exposure significantly affected the level of radiation safety management knowledge, awareness, and self-defense.

Lee [14] analyzed knowledge, attitudes, safety management practices, and anxiety about radiation exposure regarding radiation management and investigated factors influencing these factors. The study focused on improving the level of radiation safety management and deriving measures to reduce anxiety.

Choi and Choi [15] investigated the infection control practices of dental hygienists in dental clinics and radiography rooms, and the result emphasized the awareness and practice of the importance of infection control and raised the need to improve the level of infection control practices.

These papers emphasize the importance of infection control and radiation safety management that dental hygienists face and suggest the need for related education and policy improvements.

The keywords for Topic-3, Job performance and organizational commitment, are job, work, satisfaction, environment, and clinical. The main content was a study on the job performance and organizational commitment of dental hygienists and an analysis of the influence of organizational culture and leadership.

Research on dental hygienists’ job performance and organizational commitment is an important topic in the dental practice environment.

Yun et al. [16] reported that a mentoring program for new dental hygienists positively affected their job satisfaction and organizational commitment. It emphasized the importance of mentors supporting new dental hygienists in quickly adapting to their jobs and increasing their commitment to the organization.

Jang [17] reported that the working environment significantly influenced job satisfaction and organizational commitment and that a positive working environment played an important role in increasing dental hygienists’ job satisfaction and organizational commitment. It also mentioned that it contributed to strengthening the personal capabilities and improving the work performance of dental hygienists.

These studies suggest that strengthening organizational culture, communication, work environment, mentoring, and self-efficacy can improve dental hygienists’ job performance and organizational commitment. It will help increase the work efficiency of dental hygienists and enhance job satisfaction.

The keywords for Topic-4 Education and job skills were job, satisfaction, intention, turnover, stress, and work. The main content was a study on the education and job skill improvement of dental hygienists and the analysis of the effects of educational programs and training.

Various studies on dental hygienists’ education and job competencies have played an important role in improving work efficiency and job satisfaction in dental practice environments.

Park and Lee [18] investigated the influence of dental hygienists’ core competencies on job performance and reported that interpersonal competencies, self-control competencies, and basic dental hygiene management competencies had a high correlation with job performance.

Kim et al. [19] analyzed the current status of dental hygienists’ jobs and educational needs in a study to develop an educational curriculum for dental hygiene. The study evaluated the importance of dental hygienists’ duties and the need for education and showed a high need for education in the following order: management support, dental treatment cooperation, preventive dental treatment, and oral health education.

Strengthening the continuous education and mentoring system and creating a positive organizational culture will improve the job performance of dental hygienists. Moreover, policy support is necessary to increase job satisfaction and performance by developing job evaluation tools and establishing job stress management measures.

This study analyzed various research trends using keyword network analysis and topic modeling analysis targeting domestic dental hygienists and confirmed that major topics related to dental hygienists’ work environment, job stress and job satisfaction, infection control and radiation safety, job performance and organizational commitment, and education and job competency improvement were addressed. However, since this study focuses on domestic dental hygienists, there were certain limitations in the diversity of topics. In future research, examining dental hygienists in each country through international comparison will be meaningful.

This study searched for dental hygienist through the KCI search service to analyze research trends related to dental hygienists. The searched papers were preprocessed using the Excel 2016 program (Microsoft, Redmond, WA, USA) and then subjected to keyword network and topic modeling analyses using NetMiner to derive four topics. The results of the analysis are summarized as follows.

Firstly, keyword network analysis showed the main keywords: Job, Satisfaction, Health, Dental, Stress, Intention, Turnover, and Infection.Secondly, the topic modeling analysis identified 4 topics: Topic-1) Job stress and satisfaction, Topic-2) Infection management and radiation safety, Topic-3) Job performance and organizational commitment, and Topic-4) Education and job ability.

Secondly, the topic modeling analysis identified 4 topics: Topic-1 Job stress and job satisfaction, Topic-2 Infection management and radiation safety, Topic-3 Job performance and organizational commitment, and Topic-4 Education and job ability.

This study analyzed research trends related to dental hygienists published in domestic academic journals. The keywords derived in this study and the topics derived through the topic modeling analysis are expected to be used as reference data for future dental hygienist research.

No potential conflict of interest relevant to this article was reported.