Fluoride Use Guidelines: Dissemination to California Public Health Professionals

Objectives: A study of the knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors was undertaken to determine what California Public Health professionals know about fluorides, the preferred way to disseminate the “Recommendations for Using Fluoride to Prevent and Control Dental Caries in the U.S.” developed by CDC, and to test a dissemination method. Methods: The study employed a pre-intervention questionnaire, two interventions, and a post-intervention questionnaire. There were sixty questions on knowledge, attitudes, behaviors, demographics and continuing education preferences. The interventions tested were an interactive web-based “course” on fluoride and a mailed written facsimile of the web course. The pre-intervention questionnaire was sent to 356 California Public Health professionals with 206 responding. Directions to access the web-based course were sent to all respondents. Written interventions were sent to those who did not access the web-based course. The post-intervention questionnaire was sent to all 206 respondents, and the return rate was 52%. Results: The web-based course was accessed by 27% of respondents returning the post-test. The preferred dissemination method was continuing education at professional meetings (94%) and professional journals (90%). Eighty-one percent of the professionals were over age 40. A comparison of pre and post intervention results indicated a significant average improvement of 16.4% (1.2-33.3 %) in their knowledge about fluoride use. Conclusions: California Public Health Professionals display positive attitudes toward use of fluorides, but demonstrate a lack of knowledge. Web-based dissemination of guidelines was not popular, although those who took the web course gave it high marks. Lack of time was a barrier with the non-web-access group. A combination of web-based and written information on fluoride use was effective in improving the knowledge of this group even though traditional forms of CE were preferred. CDC#U48/CCU909706