Knowledge and attitudes of schoolteachers toward oral health programs and preventive dentistry

Because teachers often take on major roles in school dental health programs, three surveys were completed between 1973 and 1981 to measure teachers' attitudes and knowledge about oral health and their own participation in school programs. The questionnaires were sent to teachers whose schools were included in major dental caries preventive programs and teachers whose schools were not included in such programs. Results showed that: Teachers were quite willing to teach oral health topics and were willing to take on a wide range of teaching, but not administrative, responsibilities. Teachers' acceptance of these responsibilities appeared to decrease during the surveys, possibly as a function of school budget difficulties, indicating a need for incentives and positive rein-forcement. However, their acceptance of responsibilities was not affected by their participation in preventive programs. Schoolteachers had basic misinformation about the purposes of personal oral hygiene, and about the relative effectiveness of measures such as oral hygiene and consumption of fluoridated water in preventing dental caries. The preventive knowledge of teachers was unaffected by either the passage of time or participation in school preventive programs. A series of recommendations is given for the inservice education of school-teachers.