Objective In order to adequately care for patients with dementia, it is necessary for dental hygienists to develop unprejudiced attitudes towards and obtain sufficient knowledge of dementia. The aim of this study was to assess attitudes towards and knowledge of dementia among Japanese dental hygiene students and identify related factors to the attitude and the knowledge. We compared the attitude and the knowledge between dental hygiene students and practising dental hygienists. Background Dental hygienists are required to care for patients with dementia by developing appropriate attitudes towards dementia and gaining knowledge of dementia. Material and methods Between May 2016 and July 2016, 191 third‐grade dental hygiene students and 64 registered dental hygienists were surveyed. We modified questionnaires to assess attitudes towards and knowledge of dementia. Ageism was assessed using the Fraboni Ageism scale. To determine potential dementia awareness factors, information regarding participants’ experiences with dementia was collected. Results Factor analysis revealed four factors in the attitude scale (Cronbach's α, 0.652‐0.820). All item‐total correlation coefficients for the knowledge scale were above 0.3, and Cronbach's α was 0.827. All awareness factors for dementia were significantly different between students and registered dental hygienists. Total scores of attitude and knowledge were higher among registered dental hygienists, indicating better attitude and knowledge, but total scores of ageism were lower among registered dental hygienists, indicating worse ageism. Multiple regression analysis revealed that the attitudes towards dementia correlated with years of experience, ageism, interest in dementia and desire to work with patients with dementia. Conclusion Registered dental hygienists had more positive and more knowledge compared to dental hygiene students. Attitudes towards dementia, but not knowledge of dementia, were significantly positively correlated with ageism.

The aim of this study was to investigate whether two aspects of resilience—acquired and innate resilience—were related to self‐rated health status in registered dental hygienists and students. In May through July 2017, 405 students at three dental hygiene programs and 85 registered dental hygienists, all in Fukuoka prefecture in Japan, were invited to participate in a survey including three scales: the Bidimensional Resilience Scale (BRS) to assess innate and acquired resilience, the Stress Response Scale‐18 (SRS‐18) to assess daily stress responses, and the Sense of Coherence 13‐item scale (SOC‐13) to assess the sense of coherence. Information about self‐rated health status and number of years of clinical experience was also collected. Respondents were 398 students (98.2% response rate) and all 85 dental hygienists (100% response rate). The cohort with a self‐rated “healthy” status scored higher on total scale and each domain of the BRS, SRS‐18, and SOC‐13 scales than the cohort with other self‐rated health statuses. These three scales and self‐rated health status were significantly correlated with each other. When innate resilience increased by one point, average self‐rated health was 1.14‐fold higher. In contrast, when the depression/anxiety domain score of SRS‐18 increased by one point, self‐rated health was 0.84‐fold lower. The number of years of clinical experience was also negatively correlated with self‐rated health. For these participants, innate resilience was a significant predictor of better self‐rated health. To maintain the health of dental hygienists and students, it is important to understand their innate resilience as well as stress responses related to depression/anxiety factors and length of clinical experience.

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Background: To evaluate the efficacy of a newly developed electric toothbrush in reducing dental plaque via a quantitative light-induced fluorescence-digital (QLF-D)-applied visualisation system in the brush head. Methods: Participants included 20 adults aged 19 to 28 years. Participants were randomly assigned either (i) an electric toothbrush with a monitor to visualise red-fluorescent dental plaque via a camera built into the brush head (monitor usage group, n = 10) or (ii) an electric toothbrush without a monitor (monitor-non-use group, n = 10). The amount of dental plaque was assessed by personal hygiene performance (PHP) at baseline and 1 week later. Results: In the monitor-usage group, PHP score was significantly lower at the 1-week follow-up than at baseline (6 vs 16; range, 0-12 vs 13-21; P = 0.029). This change was not observed in the monitor-non-use group (14 vs 13; range, 6-21 vs 2-26; P = 0.778). After 1 week, the change in PHP scores in the monitor usage group was significantly greater than that in the monitor non-use group (− 10 vs 0; range, − 21 to 9 vs − 8 to 16; P = 0.021). Conclusions: Our results clearly demonstrate that brushing teeth while looking at a monitor that depicts red-autofluorescent dental plaque via application of QLF-D improved the efficacy of dental-plaque removal relative to brushing teeth without a monitor. Trial registration: Trial registration number: UMIN000033699. Name of registry: Study on effect of new devise for oral care on dental plaque clearance. Date of registration: 8th September 2018. Status of registration: Completed.