Orthodontics and Orthodontology Commons^™

Authentic Leadership In Illness Blogs: What We Can Learn From Jaw Surgery Bloggers, Marilyn Mitchell

Marilyn Mitchell

This paper argues that authentic leadership theory provides a useful model for explaining the communication of orthognathic or jaw surgery bloggers. Previous studies concluded that illness blogs can empower patients, but no research considered any leadership theory as a model for blogging. For this study, 24 publicly available blogs were analyzed to find expressions that demonstrated each of the four components of authentic leadership, which are self-awareness, relational transparency, communication based upon an internalized moral perspective, and balanced processing of information. The research also analyzed blog comments to find expressions that demonstrated followers’ development of the positive psychological capacities of …

Orthodontists’ And Patients’ Preferences In Website Design In The Selection Of An Orthodontic Practice: A Comparative Study, Taylor R. Brown

Theses and Dissertations

Objective: To determine which website characteristics are preferred by orthodontists, adult patients, and parents of patients.

Materials and Methods: 1,000 active members of the American Association of Orthodontists and 750 active orthodontic patients/parents were sampled. Participants rated the importance of website characteristics, indicated presence of those characteristics on the current website, and ranked sample website images. Preferences were compared between orthodontist and the patient/parent group using t-tests and sample websites were compared using ANOVA models and Tukey’s adjusted post-hoc tests. Significance level was set at 0.05.

Results: 11 of the 16 website features showed significant differences between patients/parents and orthodontists. …