Improving residents' oral health through staff education in nursing homes

A selection of abstracts of clinically relevant papers from other journals. The abstracts on this page have been chosen and edited by John R. Radford.

Abstract

'Residents often did not want to participate (in this study), saying that their teeth were old and did not warrant examination or brushing...'

Main

Le P, Dempster L et al. Spec Care Dentist 2012; 32: 242–250

Baseline photographs of the mouths of residents of the nursing home in which this study was carried out, showed a disturbing need for oral home care. These investigators found that the knowledge of carers improved immediately after receiving oral care education and this information was retained after six months. But did this translate into improved oral health of residents? There was no effect on the mean modified Gingival Index of the study group (n = 41) between baseline and six months, nor for control group (n = 39: another nursing home). However, plaque levels were significantly lower at the six-month follow-up for both the study and control groups (possibly the Hawthorne effect).