Oral health promotion is one of the fundamental responsibilities of the dental team; it’s an area I love!
Every single time I provide oral health information to a patient or a group, it scares me to see just how little many people know and understand about preventing oral diseases. But it delights me to see how useful I can be in educating them, answering questions and motivating people to take responsibility for their own mouths.
Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, self-care has been vital for our patients. Two really scary statistics that have been shared during Gum Disease Awareness Month (based on a survey of 2000 people carried out during Britain's lockdowns) are:
one in five adults only brush once a day;
22% of adults have gone more than three days without brushing their teeth.
Wow!
So, what can we do about that?
Education is key, and if we can start teaching children from a young age about the importance of self-care and instill a sense of responsibility in them for looking after their own mouths, perhaps we will see a change in the future with regard to these statistics.
However, reaching these age groups is difficult; it's hard to find time to set up outreach programmes or group sessions as well as creating resources to use. Dentaid have recently created a new range of resources with Denplan for the purposes of outreach to preschool and school-age children, and I was lucky enough to be the first volunteer to go into an after-school club to use them.
We had great fun going through toothbrushing techniques on models, reinforcing the habit of toothbrushing twice a day, and going through good snacks and bad snacks for our teeth. The children were funny and engaged with the session; I’m not sure who enjoyed the session more – me or the group! It was also interesting that whilst the children were doing some colouring, I spoke with the group leaders, who were asking all sorts of questions relating to dental care and oral health – so although it was aimed at the children, there was outreach to a much wider audience.
As we move forward and try to overcome the impact of the pandemic, oral health promotion will be a powerful tool for improving the country's oral health again. As dental nurses, we have such an important role to play in this – so why not look at getting involved in local oral health promotion?
You can consider arranging displays in practice or look at linking up with a local GP surgery to provide samples and displays in waiting rooms. The best thing about oral health promotion is the chance to be creative and think outside the box. Yes, most of the time this is a voluntary role, but it is so rewarding and motivating for us, not just for our patients.
https://www.dentaid.org/bright-bites-downloads/
https://www.dentaid.org/volunteer-with-us/volunteer-uk/
