Recognition and behaviour of caregiver managers related to oral care in the community

The purposes of this study were to investigate the knowledge, practice and educational background of caregiver managers regarding oral health, how they cope with visiting activities, and to explore related factors to develop an appropriate working strategy for them in the community.

The subjects were 102 caregiver managers, who voluntarily participated in a seminar organised by the M city government. The collected data were analysed to assess the relationship between the related factors of oral health, career and age, and the correlation amongst items of action process concerning oral health using Spearman's correlation coefficient and Fisher' s exact test with spss 14.0 for Windows.

The results were as follows; (i) the mean length of careers of home-care staff and caregiver managers was 3.6 +/- 3.2 and 1.6 +/- 1.6 years respectively, (ii) 90.2% recognised the importance of oral care and 92.2% were interested in oral care, although 32.4% hesitated to provide oral care, (iii) the career of caregiver managers was not significantly related to recognition of concrete objectives of oral care, soft debris and symptoms of periodontal disease, but they recognised the effectiveness of oral care in prevention of aspiration pneumonia, (iv) there was a total of 11 significantly correlated items of knowledge, recognition and practice of oral care and (v) there was a total of 10 significantly correlated items amongst factors of action process.

Results suggested that knowledge of oral care was related not only to the career but also to age and revealed a basic gap in the range of abilities between the respondent caregiver managers. Some did perform appropriate oral care and carried out the necessary processes.