Oral Health and Hygiene among Nursing Staff: A Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice Study

An individual's quality of life is dependent on the overall health and well-being. Due to the interdependence of oral health and systemic health, the oral cavity has been called as the mirror to the general health. Educative oral health measures are extremely important as major oral diseases can be deterred by appropriate knowledge and practice of good oral hygiene.

This web-questionnaire-based descriptive cross-sectional study included nursing staff of the institute for whom a pre-validated questionnaire as used by Tadin et al. was used to assess their knowledge about oral health and oral hygiene techniques. A sample size of 160 was obtained. Knowledge, practice, and attitude scores were calculated. Independent sample t-test was conducted for the test of significance.

The role of fluoride in the development of dental caries was known to 100 (62.5%) of the respondents, whereas reimplantation of an avulsed tooth was unknown to the similar percentage. The knowledge score obtained had a mean value of 12.74 (84.93%), the mean attitude score was 4.28 (42.8%), and the mean practice score was 4.51 (50.1%).

This study provided us with an insight of the knowledge of oral health and awareness about the oral hygiene techniques and its practice among the nursing staff of the institute.