Three postal surveys were conducted. Parallel questionnaires, including a question about career satisfaction, were mailed to all dental therapists registered with the General Dental Council in the UK(n = 380), all dental nurses (n = 50) enrolled by the Trinidad & Tobago Dental Council and currently practising in Trinidad & Tobago, and all dental therapists on the Dental Council of New Zealand database (n = 716). Overall response rates for the surveys were: UK therapists 80%; Trinidad & Tobago nurses 76%; New Zealand 83%. Only dental therapists currently employed in that role were included in the analyses, reducing the sample size to: UK, 221 dental therapists; Trinidad & Tobago 38, New Zealand 502.
Measure of satisfaction
Job satisfaction was determined by a single question. Participants were asked to rate their overall satisfaction with their career as a dental nurse or therapist (according to country) on a ten point scale with markers at each end where the value 1 was labelled "No satisfaction" and the value 10 labelled "Complete satisfaction".
In addition information was collected on the following
• Age of respondent
• Whether the respondent had ever taken a break in their career
• Whether the respondent felt a valued part of the dental team
Analysis
Univariate analyses were conducted to compare dental personnel across the three countries, on the variables identified. Mean and median scores on the satisfaction scale were calculated and compared using the Kruskal-Wallis test (a non-parametric version of the oneway ANOVA) since the satisfaction data had a skewed distribution (the standard error of the skewness statistic was greater than twice the skewness). Age was treated as a continuous variable and compared using a one-way analysis of variance, since the distribution of the data was approximately normal. The proportion of individuals who had ever taken a career break was compared across countries, and the respondents perception of whether they felt a valued part of the dental team was treated as a dichotomous variable (all the time or most of the time vs some of the time, seldom or never) and compared using the Chi-square statistic.
In order to examine the relative importance of each variable in predicting satisfaction, a logistic regression analysis was conducted. The outcome variable was satisfaction score dichotomised around the median value for the sample (two categories were defined, scores of 1 to 7 inclusive, and scores of 8 to 10 inclusive. Age (as a continuous variable), whether the individual had taken a career break, place (entered as three separate dummy variables coding each of the three countries) and whether the individual felt a valued member of the dental team (dichotomised most and all of the time vs all other categories) were entered stepwise as predictor variables, in order of their simple correlation with the outcome variable. Additional variables were entered until there was no significant increase in the predictive utility of the variables. For each variable in the equation the following statistics were calculated: coefficient B, the standard error of B, significance, estimated odds ratio (exp [B]). For the final model the model chi-square and the log-likelihood statistic were calculated.
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