Enhancing Nursing Students’ Understanding of Oral Health: An Educational Intervention With an Interprofessional Component

Abstract

Oral health is integral to general health and essential for well-being, and therefore, should be prioritized in pediatric nursing education. The purpose of this pilot study was to examine if an oral health education intervention with an interprofessional education (IPE) component delivered to third-year baccalaureate nursing students would improve their knowledge of pediatric oral health care. Nursing students (n = 99) from a Bachelor of Nursing program in a mid-Western Canadian university completed a survey before and after receiving the educational intervention which included a 2-hour lecture from a dentistry faculty member and a 1-hour clinical lab in which nursing students learned how to conduct a comprehensive oral health assessment in practice. Paired-sample t-tests were conducted to compare pre-and post-intervention survey scores. Findings indicate a statistically significant (p < .001) increase in knowledge from pre-test (67%) to post-test (86%) and contribute to a new understanding of the importance of pediatric oral health care in nursing education. The outcome of this intervention is that registered nurses can be prepared with the knowledge necessary to address the disparate oral health challenges experienced by children globally. These findings will provide the foundation for the refinement and implementation of the educational intervention on an international, multi-site scale.