Implementation of peer-to-peer oral care objective structured clinical examination-based learning for nursing students.

AIM: Nurses' skills and confidence in providing oral care to patients play important roles in healthcare. Studies have proved that peer-to-peer learning and assessment can help improve nurses' skills and confidence. However, no study has investigated it using an objective assessment checklist. This study investigated an oral hygiene practice training program for nursing students. It focused on their oral healthcare skills, confidence, and perspectives regarding implementing an objective structured clinical examination (OSCE). METHODS: A pre- and post-survey of 97 nursing students from a nursing school in Japan was conducted as a peer-to-peer oral health education training program that included an assessment and performance checklist. RESULTS: Confidence in performing and assessing oral care significantly improved after attending the program. Furthermore, the changes were significantly greater in the developed program than in the training program without the checklist. The mean total assessment scores (0-25) of the first, second, third, and fourth participants in the four-student groups were 22.1, 23.4, 23.9, and 24.1, respectively. The mean scores of the second, third, and fourth participant groups were significantly higher than that of the first participant group (p < .01). Fifty-two positive and 58 negative comments were received regarding the implementation of the program with professional assessments and the checklist. The most common positive comment mentioned that the evaluation by professionals improved oral care learning and skills. CONCLUSIONS: This study developed a program to improve nursing students' confidence and oral care delivery skill building in an OSCE-style delivery.

Factors associated with nurses' performance of oral assessments and dental referrals for hospital inpatients.

BACKGROUND: Nurses' oral assessment and dental referral performance for inpatients are important to provide appropriate oral care services in hospitals. The purpose of this study was to investigate the knowledge, attitudes, and performance of oral assessments and dental referrals for their inpatients among nurses and to identify factors associated with that performance to promote oral health care in hospitals. METHODS: All nurses (n = 919) who worked at five hospitals in Japan were recruited as responders. A questionnaire regarding their performance of oral assessments and dental referrals was distributed to the subjects in each hospital. The data were collected from August 2018 to September 2018. RESULTS: A total of 757 (82.4%) nurses (82 males and 675 females) responded to the questionnaire. With respect to each of the 8 oral assessment categories, 16.2-41.2% of the nurses performed oral assessments for more than 50% of their inpatients, and 20.3-29.9% had encouraged more than one inpatient to see a dentist within the previous 3 months. Significant differences were found by ward and hospital in their performance of oral assessments for inpatients. Additionally, their oral assessment performance, knowledge of the usage of oral assessment tools, wards, and hospitals were significantly associated with their dental referral performance. CONCLUSIONS: The performance of oral assessment and dental referral was not developed sufficiently in the hospitals. Thus, oral health professionals should support oral assessment education for nurses, including usage of assessment tools, to promote dental referral by nurses. These results may contribute to promotion of dental referral performance by nurses and provision of oral health care by oral health professionals for hospital inpatients.