Educational Activity of Nurse in Prevention of Teeth Cariosity with Pre-school Children in Connection with Dental Hygiene

This Bachelor thesis deals with Educational Activity of a Nurse in Tooth Decay Prevention in Pre-school Children in Relation to Dental Hygiene. Tooth decay is the most frequent chronic, multifactorial, infectious disease. In my practice of a nurse I meet children patients accompanied by parents to a preventive check-up every day, but sometimes also to acute care with toothache. The present aim of paediatric stomatology is to build systematic treatment and preventive care upon individual approach of a dentist and a nurse on one hand and upon parental responsibility on the other hand. Parents should include dental care into the overall care of healthy development of a child. If they understand the mechanism of the cause of deciduous teeth decay the state is preventable. Education as upbringing has taken an important position in modern health care and has become an everyday par of professional activity of a nurse. The aim of the thesis is to map the attitudes of parents to dental hygiene of their pre-school children as well as the importance of education in tooth decay prevention in this age group provided by a nurse. A hypothesis was set to the first aim: Parents do participate in dental hygiene of pre-school children. A research question was set to the second aim: How education provided by a nurse influences the ability to perform dental hygiene among pre-school children? Questioning method, the technique of questionnaire aimed at parents of pre-school children was applied to the quantitative research to examine the dental hygiene habits. The questionnaire results confirmed the hypothesis. A method of quasi experiment, the technique of monitoring and interviewing pre-school children in a kindergarten in České Budějovice was used in the qualitative part of the research. The first group of children became an author of a fairy tale and was actively involved in the correct technique of tooth brushing and using dental aids. An educational programme with a didactic aid ? a glove puppet is very attractive and beneficial for children. In the form of a fairy tale the children acquire healthy way of life, correct habits and also communication abilities. The second group consisted of uneducated children. The children were asked questions dealing with dental hygiene and oral health they acquired in their families, where they adapt approaches, gestures, attitudes and speech patterns from their examples. And they subconsciously mutually influence one another and form themselves for the whole future life in a kindergarten, where they enter a wider community of children for the first time. The knowledge of tooth decay prevention and the ability to brush teeth differs substantially in the two groups of monitored children. Unlike the uneducated ones the educated children were able to answer consequent questions on dental hygiene and oral health Dental hygiene and oral health education should be an everyday part of upbringing at kindergartens and elementary schools, but particularly in families. At this age parental example is an unsubstitutable base for further development and quality of life