An assessment of the educational value of service-learning community placements in residential aged care facilities

The aim of this study was to determine whether dental hygiene students attending residential aged care facilities (RACFs) during a placement programme gained any knowledge about the oral care of elderly patients and the RACF environment.

Aged Care Facilities on the Central Coast of New South Wales, Australia.

Final year dental hygiene students undertook a 12-week placement, one day per week, in one of 17 residential aged care facilities on the NSW Central Coast. They were asked to complete pre-placement and post-placement questionnaires, which recorded their knowledge of medical, dental and environmental issues related to older people. The placement questionnaires used five point Likert scales, ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree, pre- and post-mean scores were produced for each question and P values calculated using a paired t-test.

Thirty-three students attended the placement, 26 (79%) completed both the pre- and post-placement questionnaires. Post-placement mean scores as compared to pre-placement mean scores showed significant improvement in student knowledge of medical (P < 0.05) and dental (P < 0.05) conditions specific to the older person and improvement in knowledge (P < 0.05) about the residential aged care facility environment.

The placement programme enhanced student knowledge across three subject categories; medical and dental conditions of the older person and the structure and services of the residential aged care environment.