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Updated: Jun 1, 2025

Oral Health Assessment by Lay Personnel for Older Adults
Published on: February 2, 2020
Effectiveness of an embedded oral health educational intervention in an undergraduate nursing program: A mixed
Jacqueline Rojo1, Lucie M Ramjan2, Yenna Salamonson3
1School of Nursing and Midwifery, Western Sydney University, Locked Bag 1797, Penrith, NSW 2751, Australia; Australian Centre for Integration of Oral Health (ACIOH), School of Nursing and Midwifery, Western Sydney University, Ingham Institute for Applied Medical Research, Locked Bag 7103, Liverpool, NSW 2170, Australia.
Aim:
This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of an oral health educational intervention designed for undergraduate nursing students.
Background:
The role of oral health promotion and screening has been extended to non-dental health professionals, for example, nurses. To prepare the future workforce for these responsibilities, an educational intervention underpinned by Mezirow's Transformative Learning Theory was codesigned and implemented in an Australian undergraduate nursing program.
Methods:
A concurrent mixed methods design was used to evaluate the educational intervention Semi-structured interviews with second-year nursing students and faculty staff along with pre-post-test surveys (validated tool) were used to assess changes in attitude and confidence among nursing students regarding oral healthcare. Directed Content Analysis and univariate and bivariate analyses were used to analyse the data.
Results:
Nursing students experienced a positive change in attitude following the educational intervention, which was also observed by faculty staff. This was corroborated by statistically significant improvements in attitude (5.89 versus 6.22, p=0.002) with the main area of improvement being a positive recognition of the role that nurses have in oral health assessment (21% increase). Students demonstrated a positive shift in confidence, which was supported by the quantitative data which showed an increase in mean scores post intervention (4.73 versus 5.26, p<0.001). Marked improvement in confidence was observed around the recognition of periodontitis (24-25% increase) which was the key focus of the educational intervention.
Conclusion:
This is the first time an oral health educational intervention has been implemented and found to be effective in improving the attitude and confidence of nursing students when undertaking oral healthcare activities in Australia. Adopting a transformative approach to teaching oral health is recommended for undergraduate nursing education providers as this learning approach can positively influence practice and behaviour changes.
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