Primary care physicians and nurses: Targets for basic periodontal education

Early diagnosis may improve patients' quality of life and reduce the lifelong social and financial burden inherent to treatment. Growing evidence supports the importance of a healthy periodontium in systemic health. Diagnosis depends on the patient and the healthcare professional. As many patients seek physicians' advice first, this study aims at assessing periodontal knowledge in a general population and their primary care physicians and nurses.

This is a cross-sectional study using an anonymous questionnaire applied to randomly selected laypersons (March to June 2016), and to physicians and nurses at their workplaces (October to December 2016) in Ourense, Spain. Sample size for the general population was determined by quota sampling.

A total of 1,469 people entered the study. All healthcare workers and 624 (47.1%) laypersons were familiar with periodontitis. Bacterial etiology of periodontitis was recognized by 25 (4%) laypersons, 23 (34.3%) physicians, and 11 (16.6%) nurses. The following periodontal problems were experienced: 1) gingival redness: laypersons 14.4%, physicians 16.4%, and nurses 21.2%; 2) gingival bleeding: laypersons 22.2%, physicians 50.7%, and nurses 50%; 3) tooth mobility: laypersons 34.9%, physicians 7.4%, and nurses 6%; and 4) bleeding while toothbrushing: laypersons 44.3%, physicians 8.9%, and nurses 15.1%. More than a third of laypersons (37%) think periodontitis is related to other health problems, together with 53% of physicians and 47% of nurses.

Our results show a low degree of periodontal knowledge both amongst the public and their primary care physicians and nurses and unveil unreliable targets (primary healthcare workers) for educational interventions to improve early diagnosis and treatment of periodontal disorders.