Abstract
Due to the revised School Health Act of 1995, the contents of the dental examination chart and dental check-up items have undergone substantial changes. Since the revised items now place considerable emphasis on health education, which has always been one of the primary goals, the dental examination is regarded as an effective measure for improving the conventional school health management, which has been heavily biased toward dental check-ups in the past. The authors conducted 3 rounds of a questionnaire by the Delphi method in 171 nurse teachers in Chiba City in order to learn of their opinions and cognition related to the method of promoting oral health education in schoolchildren and their evaluation of dental examination. As a result, responses to an item on the post-check-up activities by the nurse teachers (72.3-83.1%) indicated that their main activity is to communicate with the children's family, largely by exchanging information through health information and other newsletters. More than 50% of the nurse teachers answered that a fluoride mouthrinse system at school was unnecessary because of their lack of satisfactory knowledge or information about fluoride. This rate was stable in each: round of the survey. Concerning the disinfection of the instruments used during dental check-ups, it was indicated that a high proportion (51.8-72.8%) of the subjects had a preference for central management of disinfection and delivery of the instruments. This rate was increased from the first to the second to; the third round of the Delphi survey. The characteristic of the Delphi method in that answers reflect convergent thinking was observed in the following items: evaluation of the revised dental check-up system, introduction of 'questionable caries for observation,' frequency of dental check-ups, desirable disinfection method of dental instruments, activities of school health committee, and cooperation between the school dentist and family dentist. This phenomenon was especially obvious in the item concerning disinfection of the dental instruments.
