Practice of preventive dentistry for nursing staff in primary care

Abstract

Objectives: Determine the domain of preventive dentistry in nursing personnel assigned to a primary care unit. Methods: Prospective descriptive study, questionnaire validation, and prevalence study. In the first stage, the questionnaire for the practice of preventive dentistry (CPEP, for the term in Spanish) was validated; consistency and reliability were measured by Cronbach's alpha, Pearson's correlation, factor analysis with intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC). In the second stage, the domain in preventive dental nurses was explored. Results: The overall internal consistency of CPEP is α= 0.66, ICC= 0.64, CI95%: 0.29-0.87 (p >0.01). Twenty-one subjects in the study, average age 43, 81.0% female, average seniority of 12.5 were included. A total of 71.5% showed weak domain, 28.5% regular domain, and there was no questionnaire with good domain result. The older the subjects were, the smaller the domain; female nurses showed greater mastery of preventive dentistry (29%, CI95%: 0.1-15.1) than male nurses. Public health nurses showed greater mastery with respect to other categories (50%, CI95%: 0.56-2.8). Conclusions: The CDEP has enough consistency to explore the domain of preventive dentistry in health-care staff. The domain of preventive dentistry in primary care nursing is poor, required to strengthen to provide education in preventive dentistry to the insured population.

Knowledge, attitudes and habits regarding oral health among nurses of Clinical hospital center Rijeka

“…One of these studies showed poor knowledge about preventive dentistry in primary care nursing. It also showed better knowledge among female nurses and better knowledge among public health nurses in respect to other categories [12]. One that was conducted on critical care nurses found that their oral health knowledge is inadequate which makes them unprepared for caring for the oral health of critically ill patients [11].…”

“…Studies that used other questionnaires, not the HU-DBI, also demonstrated a lack of self-reported oral health knowledge among nurses [11][12][13]. One of these studies showed poor knowledge about preventive dentistry in primary care nursing.…”

“…They should be educated on basic preventive dentistry including the most common oral diseases and their prevention, techniques for identifying and removing plaque, usage of fluorides [4,5].…”