Retaining Oral Health Knowledge and Skills of School Health Nurses

Objective. To evaluate retention of oral health knowledge and skills of the Miami-Dade County school health nurses after a training program. Methods. Data was collected using a 20 item self-administered questionnaire developed using previously tested questions on oral health knowledge and skills. The questionnaire was administered pre and post a four-hour oral health education session to nurses. The training was administered to 214 and 194 medical providers in 2014 and 2015 respectively. Data was entered and analyzed using EXCEL. These analyses to evaluate the retention of knowledge and skills is for those nurses that were trained twice, with one-year between the two sessions. There were 71 nurses trained twice and used in the current analyses. Results. In 2014, at pre-test, only 58% of the questions were answered correctly, and after training, on post-test, 92%. In 2015, in the pre-test, 77% of the questions were answered correctly, and after training 96%. Only 17% of nurses trained in 2014 fully retained their knowledge. On average, between the two training sessions there was a loss of knowledge and skills of about 15% or 3 questions. Conclusion. Oral health knowledge and skills was poor to start with, but improved with training. However in a year, knowledge reduced. Thus suggesting a need for re-training to sustain and retain knowledge and skills, particularly when it involves new knowledge and skills not previously performed. Grants. This project was funded by The Children’s Trust of Miami