Provision of Oral Hygiene and Diet Counselling to Patients in Dental Clinics in Suva, Fiji

Objectives:
1) To determine whether oral hygiene instructions and diet counseling is given to patients attending the dental clinics.
2) To determine the category of oral health care providers disseminating this information to the patients
3) To find out the reasons for not carrying out oral hygiene instructions and diet counseling.
Methods:
A single blinded observational study was carried out with a sample size of 30.
Convenient random simple sampling was used.
Confidentiality purposes Identification code used for each operator
Data was collected using questionnaire which consisted of two parts.
Part A filled by observer Part B by respective officer.

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Results: Thirty seven percent (37%) of patients attending the dental clinic were given either or both oral hygiene and diet counseling; the highest by Dentists (33%), Dental Therapists (50%) and least by Dental Hygienists (25%).Sixty three percent (63%) did not receive any form of oral health education. Reasons for not giving oral hygiene and diet counseling in the clinic included language barrier, time busy doing clinical procedures, tend to forget, no patient motivation, no teaching aids and operator motivation while cultural background did not had any barrier to seek treatment.
Conclusions: Slightly more than a third of patients were given either or both oral hygiene and diet counseling. Majority of Oral Health Education were instructed by Dental Therapists and least by Dental Hygienists.