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Oral health ambassador scheme: training needs analysis in the community setting

British Dental Journal (2022)Cite this article

Abstract

Introduction Successful oral health promotion relies on resource availability, adequate training and stakeholder engagement. Community nursing teams are in a unique position to promote oral health due to their vulnerable service users who have increased oral health concerns. This article will share results from a training needs analysis.

Aims To understand the previous oral health promotion experience of staff within community nursing teams, including identification of previous training and barriers to oral health promotion.

Materials and methods An electronic training needs analysis was distributed to non-dental, patient-facing staff within Birmingham Community NHS Foundation Trust.

Results In total, 91% (n = 120) of staff members had seen a patient who displayed oral health concerns, 68% (n = 90) of responders had never received training for assessing a patient's mouth and providing mouth care and 9% (n = 12) of staff had received internal trust training regarding oral health. Lack of training impeded 56% (n = 74) of participants from providing oral care and 92% (n = 121) of participants expressed they would benefit from further oral health training.

Conclusion Community nursing teams should be supported to engage with oral health promotion to encourage reduced knowledge and confidence deficits, which will support holistic patient management to encourage improvement of oral and general health.

Key points

  • Community healthcare staff have a unique opportunity to support oral health needs of vulnerable community patients.

  • The main barriers community nurses face to delivering oral health promotion include lack of training, equipment and time.

  • Interventions aimed at reducing oral health interdisciplinary knowledge barriers should be implemented to improve holistic patient care.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge colleagues across Birmingham Community NHS Foundation Healthcare Trust for their support in the development and distribution of the scheme. A special thank you to Tina Gorman for her support with developing and promoting awareness of the project.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Specialty Registrar in Restorative Dentistry, Royal National ENT and Eastman Dental Hospitals, University College London Hospitals, UK

    Natalie Archer

  2. Specialist Oral Surgeon Birmingham Community Healthcare Trust and Clinical Leadership Fellow, NHS England, UK

    Katy Martin

  3. Speciality Trainee in Paediatric Dentistry, Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, UK

    Laura Johnston

Authors
  1. Natalie Archer
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  2. Katy Martin
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  3. Laura Johnston
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Contributions

All authors were involved in the conception, data collection, data analysis, writing and reviewing of the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Natalie Archer.

Ethics declarations

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

The HRA Tool determined that ethical approval was not required for this study, due to no clinical, sensitive, or patient data being collected. Implied consent was achieved due to participants voluntarily completing the survey, which was anonymised and without incentive.

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Archer, N., Martin, K. & Johnston, L. Oral health ambassador scheme: training needs analysis in the community setting. Br Dent J (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41415-022-5031-y

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