Objective: To assess the perceptions of caregivers towards oral healthcare services received by elders in Malaysian nursing homes and to identify challenges and suggestions for improvement. Background: Caregivers play an important role in the oral health care of elders in nursing homes. Methods: This study employed a qualitative approach using the nominal group technique (NGT) to obtain caregivers' feedback in nursing homes in Malaysia. Data were manually transcribed, summarised into keywords/key phrases, and ranked using weighted scores. Results: In total, 36 caregivers (21 from government and 15 from private nursing homes) participated in the NGT sessions. Overall, caregivers were satisfied with the low treatment cost, the quality of treatment, and the availability of dental visits to nursing homes. Caregivers were dissatisfied with the frequency of dental visits, long waiting times at government dental clinics, and inadequate denture hygiene education for elders in nursing homes. The challenges faced by caregivers were elders' poor oral health knowledge and attitude and lack of elders' trust of caregivers to look after their oral health. Suggestions for improvement were to increase the frequency of dental visits to nursing homes, provide oral health education to elders and caregivers, and give treatment priority to elders at dental clinics. Conclusion: Despite being satisfied with the basic oral healthcare services received by elders in Malaysian nursing homes, caregivers raised some issues that required further attention. Suggestions for improvement include policy changes in nursing home dental visits and treatment priority for elders at government dental clinics.
Maintaining oral health (OH) is a serious issue in children with cerebral palsy (CP) for their inability to perform effective OH care as well as for lack of accessibility to dental services. This study explored the experience of the caregivers on accessibility towards OH facilities for their children with CP in Kota Bharu, Kelantan. A purposive sampling technique was utilised. In-depth interviews using guided questions captured with audio-recorder were conducted on caregivers of children with CP. Verbatim transcription of the interviews were reviewed with field notes, and themes were developed using NVivo software. Ten caregivers of children with CP aged 32-64 years old participated, which were mostly from low socio-economic status and low level of education. The age of children with CP in this study were between nine to 18 years old. From the ten verbatim transcripts, five themes emerged which were dental experience, family support, mobility, ability to pay and social value. The caregivers experienced both demanding and unique challenges in acquiring OH care services for their children with CP according to their experiences in obtaining OH services in Kota Bharu, Kelantan. Therefore, attentions are needed to address these problems that are hindering the access to OH facilities for children with CP.
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