2016 Volume 20 Issue 2 Pages 80-85
The number of dependent older people who require oral care and eating assistance are increasing. It is important for trainee dentists to have the chance to provide oral care and eating instructions to older people in nursing homes. However, there are few institutions that provide this opportunity. In the postgraduate clinical training at Niigata University, trainee dentists have this experience at nursing homes once a week. To enable the best training program to be developed for the future, a questionnaire survey was performed.
The subjects participating in this survey were 144 trainee dentists from Niigata University, who were involved in post-graduate training from 2009–2013. The questionnaire included questions testing their knowledge, as well as their experience of providing oral care or eating instructions to older people in nursing homes, and how they rate the value of these practices.
As a result, although 80.4% had adequate knowledge of oral care, only 56.6% and 18.2% of trainee dentists had provided oral care or eating instructions, respectively. Most of the trainee dentists had answered that oral care and the provision of eating instructions were worthwhile. Eighty percent of the trainee dentists thought that intervention by dental staff for oral care and eating instruction was important.
As the number of dependent older people increases, the role of dentists in oral care and the provision of eating instructions become more important. Introducing these practices in nursing homes as part of trainee dentists’ post-graduate clinical training would be very helpful in providing dentists with the experience to give instructions for eating assistance to patients’ families and co-medical staff.
