2016 Volume 31 Issue 2 Pages 108-122
The purpose of this study was to compare the characteristics of four types of healthcare professionals（HPs：registered nurses, assistant nurses, certified care workers, and care workers）who provide oral care services（OCS）which have a strong relationship to the prevention of illnesses such as pneumonia at welfare facilities for the elderly. In 2014, a questionnaire survey was conducted with 3,001 HPs in Niigata Prefectures；the collection rate was 51.6％.
The four types of HPs were assumed to be responsible for OCS. The HPsʼ concern for and daily practice of their own oral care（HPOOC）, as well as their perception and level of execution of OCS for elderly residents, were analyzed by binary logistic regression analysis （b-LRA）. The scores of the eight items used to measure the perception and the level of execution of OCS for elderly residents were standardized and combined into a composite score, which was then was dichotomized at the mean and used as the dependent variable in the b-LRA. A total of 16 items were used as explanatory variables, including 11 items related to HPOOC and five items related to basic characteristics such as profession, gender, and age group. The results after adjusting for potential cofounding factors showed that registered nurses had a significantly lower level of execution of OCS compared with the other three types of HPs. The daily tooth brushing habits of the HPs themselves were very significantly related to their perception and level of execution of OCS for elderly residents. Also, HPs who had previously noticed improvement in the general condition of elderly residents demonstrated a statistically higher（p＝0.0258）level of execution of OCS.
Based on these results, increasing registered nursesʼ perception of OCS should be considered a crucial step in improving the quality of OCS provided to elderly residents.
