Authors (including presenting author) :
Dr. PY Yeung (1), SW Tang (1), RYY Chan (1), LN Tsui (1), KW Mak (1), HW Tam (1), YT Cho (1)
Affiliation :
(1)Department of Medicine and Rehabilitation, Tung Wah Eastern Hospital
Introduction :
Poor oral health care has been associated to longer length of hospital stays due to an increased risk in hospital-acquired infections such as pneumonia and affecting nutritional intake, which is vital in supporting recovery. Hence, an individual’s oral health can have both a physical and emotional impact and it is important that healthcare professionals need to aware mouth problem and maintain good oral hygiene in hospital setting, as well as back to community. In TWEH, the effectiveness of enhancement program on knowledge of oral care is needed in order to promote and facilitate staff to perform good practice on mouth care.
Objectives :
The effectiveness of enhancing staff knowledge on promoting oral care of patients
Methodology :
(i)Target: Staff included nurses, nurse learners and patient care assistants, who would deliver patients care (ii)Period: One-hour seminar (iii)Intervention: The seminar with oral care techniques for conscious patients and denture care, and patients with Ryles’ tube, had launched. The method on how to obtain the patients education information leaflet via TWEH intranet site was also taught. (iv)Comparison: Pre and post evaluation test was conducted before and after the seminar. Four evaluation questions for conscious patients and denture care: the purposes of oral and denture care, the items needed for oral and denture care, the duration for dentures soaping, and the need of putting off the dentures while sleeping; Five evaluation questions for Ryles’ tube patients: the purposes of oral care, the items needed for oral care, the procedures for oral care, the need of putting off the dentures while sleeping and the need of stopping procedures while vomiting attended.
Result & Outcome :
Findings: The compliance rate (N=54) on care of the conscious patients had around 20% increase and approximately 45% increase for care for patients with Ryle’s tube. There was an increase on knowledge level for both oral and denture care and with Ryle’s tube. The average satisfaction score of the seminar with education videos was 4.1/5.
