Complexities of interprofessional identity formation in dental hygienists: an exploratory case study

BACKGROUND: In a super-aging society, medical-dental collaboration is increasingly vital for comprehensive patient care. Particularly in dysphagia rehabilitation and perioperative oral functional management, dental hygienists’ active involvement is pivotal to interprofessional collaborative practice. Despite this societal expectation, dental hygienists’ experiences and perceptions of interprofessional collaboration have not been explored. This study aims to investigate dental hygienists’ interprofessional identity formation and perceptions of interprofessional collaboration. Specifically, it was explored from the perspectives of dental hygiene students and hospital dental hygienists. METHODS: This study is underpinned by Wenger’s social theory of learning, which focuses on identity as a component in the process of learning in communities. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 11 dental hygiene students in their final year at a technical college and five dental hygienists engaging in interprofessional care at a university hospital in Japan. The narrative data were analysed using an inductive approach to thematic analysis to extract themes regarding the identification of self in interprofessional teams. RESULTS: Dental hygiene students found several barriers to the collaboration, including power relation and conceptual hierarchy, limited understanding of other professional roles, and differences in language and jargon. They viewed themselves as inferior in the interprofessional team. This resulted from their limited knowledge about general health and less responsibility for problems directly related to patient life and death. However, they could ultimately perceive the negative experiences positively as challenges for the future through reflection on learning in clinical placements. Contrarily, dental hygienists did not have such negative perceptions as the students did. Rather, they focused on fulfilling their roles as dental professionals in the interprofessional team. Their identities were formed through actively involving, coordinating their activity, and creating new images of the world and self in inter-professional communities of practice. CONCLUSIONS: Interprofessional identity is relational as well as experiential, which is developed in complex and socially dynamic processes across intra- and inter-professional communities of practice. Engagement, imagination, and alignment are essential aspects of their interprofessional identities, which inform conceptual foundations of interprofessional education and collaborative practice in health care. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12909-021-03082-z.