The impact of General Dental Council registration and continuing professional development on UK dental care professionals: (2) dental technicians.

Objective: To investigate the impact of General Dental Council (GDC) registration and mandatory CPD on dental technicians' views, job satisfaction and intention to leave the profession.

Design: Postal/online survey, conducted in parallel with a survey of dental nurses.

Setting: UK private and NHS practices, community services, dental hospitals.

Subjects And Methods: Representative sample of GDC registrants.

Main Outcome Measures: job satisfaction; intention to leave profession (dependent variable in regression analysis).

Results: 605 were sampled: 40 were ineligible (left the register in July 2011, re-qualified in another dental care profession, shared a practice address with another selected DT); 193 responded (response rate 34%). 22% were female (mean age 38.2 years) and 78% male (mean age 49.4 years). The general principle of registration was endorsed by 52%, and compulsory registration by 54%, but the fee level by only 13%. Most technicians felt that registration had had either no effect or a negative effect on their view of their career (80%), role (78%) or status within the dental team (85%), and 66% did not agree that training helped them to do their job better. Fifty-one percent were not satisfied with their job and 20% intended to leave the profession. Intention to leave was predicted by greater dissatisfaction with remuneration.

Conclusions: Criticisms regarding the cost and relevance of registration and the cost, relevance and accessibility of CPD, coupled with potentially high level of attrition from the profession, suggest a review of the fee and salary structure and greater support for CPD is warranted.