Journal of Oral Hygiene & Health
Open Access

Research Article

Nursing Staff’s Knowledge about and Skills in Providing Oral Hygiene Care for Patients with Neurological Disorders

¹Department of Neurorehabilitation, HAN University of Applied Sciences, The Netherlands

²BENECOMO, Flemish-Netherlands Geriatric Oral Research Group, The Netherlands

³Department of Oral Function and Prosthetic Dentistry, Radboud university medical center, The Netherlands

⁴Nijmegen Knowledge Centre of Neurorehabilitation, Radboud university medical center, The Netherlands

⁵Education of Dental Hygiene Department of Primary and Community Care, Radboud university medical center, The Netherlands

⁶Department of Rehabilitation, Radboud university medical center, The Netherlands

*Corresponding Author:

Vanessa Hollaar
HAN University of Applied Sciences
P.O. Box 6960, 6503 GL
Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Tel: +31 (0)24 361 63 65
E-mail: vanessa.hollaar@ radboudumc.nl

Received Date: October 08, 2015; Accepted Date: November 18, 2015; Published Date: November 26, 2015

Citation: Hollaar V, Maarel-Wierink Cvd, Putten Gvd, Rood B, Elvers H, et al. (2015) Nursing Staff’s Knowledge about and Skills in Providing Oral Hygiene Care for Patients with Neurological Disorders. J Oral Hyg Health 3:190. doi:10.4172/2332-0702.1000190

Copyright: © 2015 Hollaar V, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Objectives: To determine nursing staff’s current knowledge on providing oral hygiene care to patients with neurological disorders, to develop a structured basic oral examination guideline and flowchart, to educate and train the nursing staff practically concerning performing a structured basic oral examination, and to compare their perceptions on their knowledge and skills before and after education and practical training. Methods: The study was performed at a hospital’s department for patients with neurological disorders in the Netherlands. The study was conducted in two Projects: (1) using a questionnaire, several aspects of providing oral hygiene care by the nursing staff were examined; (2) a guideline for a structured basic oral examination was developed, the nursing staff received training to use the guideline, the potential increase of the nursing staff’s knowledge and skills was evaluated using a scoring form before and after the education and practical training and their perception on performing this examination was assessed using 11 questions. Results: (1) The nursing staff experienced some problems during providing oral hygiene care and demonstrated a lack of knowledge on cleansing and handling removable dentures, whereas they considered themselves adequately skilled. (2) Education and practical training did not improve their knowledge and skills, but enhanced their perception of competence significantly. Conclusions: The nursing staff demonstrated a lack of knowledge. Education and practical training enhanced their perception of their knowledge and skills concerning performing a structured basic oral examination.

Keywords