A qualitative exploration of student health-of-self competency: Does salutogenesis or pathogenesis prevail?

Background: Higher education institutions are called to promote health, ensuring students experience healthy learning environments. Additionally, health professionals, including dental hygienists and dentists, must demonstrate competence in maintaining their health as part of their professional responsibilities upon entering practice. How is this competency taught and instilled, and how does the learning environment influence the understanding of health-of-self? Do learners understand health from a prevention-focused perspective or do programs approach health through a health creation and promotion lens (i.e., from within the salutogenic or health-promoting paradigm)? Research is limited on dental hygiene and dental education programs' positioning as it relates to the paradigms that inform the teaching and learning of this competency. Methods: This qualitative study explores dental hygiene and dentistry learning environments and curricula at a Canadian university. Content analysis was conducted on accreditation documents and program meeting minutes to determine which paradigm-either explicitly or implicitly-guided the programs' approaches to the practice competency and supporting learning environment. Results: A pathogenic or disease paradigm informed both programs, reinforcing the hegemonic pathogenic perspective on health and health care. Discussion: While disease prevention is not in contention, future health professionals preparing to fulfill their role as health promoters would benefit from understanding health from a salutogenic perspective. This understanding would better position graduates to foster healthy workplace environments. Conclusions: Curriculum, policy implications, and recommendations are discussed to inspire programs to be health-promoting or salutogenic learning settings.