Training and satisfaction of Public Health Nurses in dental diagnosis and prevention

Objectives: Training nurses from Family Health Centers (FHC) in recognition of caries and dental lesions, teaching them prevention methods and evaluation of their attitudes and satisfaction following the implementation of a three months pilot program.
Methods: An intensive two days training program for public health nurses from the Southern District was established. The nurses had no previous knowledge in dental prevention and dental health.
On the first day, the program included frontal lectures on dentition development, dental morphology and embryology, caries and its determinants, oral lesions, caries prevention and fluorides.
On the second day there was 'hands-on' training in dental and oral diagnosis, caries risk assessment, infant tooth brushing and fluoride varnish application. A specifically developed caries assessment chart was presented.
After the training, the nurses participated in a pilot program of dental health prevention and early ECC detection in FHCs. After three months the nurses were interviewed about their satisfaction and attitudes towards the program.
Results: Three nurses from three FHCs that implemented the program were interviewed. Their satisfaction was high, they considered that their activity in the program is important.They were confident in their ability to diagnose oral diseases and to prevent caries. Two of them complained about high work load but expressed their wish to continue the program.
Conclusions: A well designed theoretical and practical training program may prepare public health nurses to recognise oral health problems and to implement caries prevention program as part of their health prevention and vaccination tasks.