Purpose: The purpose of this research is to verify the mediating effect of patient trust in the relationship of communication skill and patient satisfaction and intention to revisit, to promote the awareness of importance of the role of dental hygienists and the improvement of communication skill, and to provide basic data for trust with patients.

Method: A survey was conducted with outpatients in dentists’ or dental clinics located in Seoul, Gyounggi, and Daejeon area from Aug. 1, 2013 to Sep.3, 2013. 483 answers out of the total collected answers were used for the final analysis of the study, using SPSS 18.0 and Amos 7.0 to measure the validity and reliability of the measurement tool. One-way ANOVA and t-test were used to identify the differences between the general characteristics and the charact-eristics in dental care. Lastly, structured equation modeling method analysis was used to analyze the relationships of dental hygienist’s communication skills and patient trust, patient satisfaction, and intention to revisit. In addition, the mediating effect of the patient trust was examined using the Bootstrapping method.

Result:
1. The factor analysis showed that the communication skill of the dental hygienists was composed of three elements, namely commu-nication for Sharing Information, communication for Being Caring and Respect, and communications for Tending to Your Comfort to reduce pain and anxiety.
2. The validity of the model examined by a confirmatory factor analysis satisfied most of the relevant requirements. All of the factors had the conceptual reliability (0.7 or higher) and Variant Extracted Index (0.5 or higher) above the minimum requirements, ensuring reliability and concentrated validity. Also, the value of the square of the correlations between all latent factors ranged from 0.298 to 0.468, which was larger than the square of the correlation between all of the factors, thus proving the discriment validity.
3. The differences in communication skills based on the general characteristics were larger with the male subject, with the differ-ence being statistically significant. The educational background was significant only with communication for Being Caring and Respect. The differences in the communication skills based on the characteristics of dental care usage were only statistically significant for the expenditure with relation to communication for Being Caring and Respect and Communication for Sharing Information. The patient trust, satisfaction, and intention to revisit based on the general characteristics had statistically significant differences in terms of gender, while the educational background showed statistically significant differences with the patient satisfaction and intention to revisit only.
4. The structured model analysis showed that the communication skill of the dental hygienist affected the patient trust. Of the communication skills of the dental hygienist, Communication for Being Caring and Respect skill, as well as communication for Tending to Comfort, appeared to influence the patient satisfaction. Communication for Sharing Information and communications for Tending to Comfort had influences over the intention to revisit. The patient trust had a significant influence the patient satisfaction and the intention to revisit.
5. The result of Bootstrapping to verify the mediating effect of the patient trust showed that the patient trust had a partial mediating effect in the relationship between the communication skills such as Communications for Being Caring and Respect and communic-ations for Tending to Comfort and the patient satisfaction. comm-unication for Sharing Information, on the other hand, appeared to have a full mediating effect via the patient trust, rather than affecting the patient satisfaction directly. In addition, in the relat-ionship between Tending to Your Comfort communication and the intention to revisit, the patient trust had a partial mediating effect, while Communication for Being Caring and Respect, which did not affect the intention to revisit, had a full mediating effect via patient trust.

Conclusion: The importance of dental hygienists’ communication should be recognized and patient-centered communication should be provided. Dental hygienists should do caring and respectful commu-nication for patients, and should explain the information needed for patients in detail, and sufficient explanation in advance to reduce anxiety and pain of patients during dental treatment and putting their mind at rest have positive effects on the formation of relation-ship between patients and dental hygienists.