A Pilot test of an oral health education module for community health workers in Ikeja LGA, Lagos State.

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to report the experience of developing, facilitating, and evaluating a 3-day module on oral health education for Primary Health Care Workers (CHW) in Ikeja LGA Lagos State. Methods: Twenty-one CHW in Ikeja LGA were invited for a 3-day oral health education-training program in January 2015. An oral health education manual and a flip chart developed for this purpose were used during training. Participants received didactic lectures on the first two days and participated in a practical session on the third day. A pretest was done before the training session while a posttest was done immediately and 6 months after the intervention. Data entry, validation and analysis was done using SPSS version 20. Results: Majority of the respondents were female (95.0%), Community Health Officers (65.0%), mean age was 42.1± 10.4 years while mean years of experience was 9.7 ±10.8 years. There was a statistically significant increase (p= 0.000) in the mean knowledge score of participants immediately after the intervention. There was no difference between the results obtained immediately and at 6 months after the training (p= 0.328). All participants reported including oral health education in their routine health education sessions at the 6-month review. They also reported observing changes in client's perception and behavior regarding oral health. They identified the flipchart as a useful tool for the oral health education sessions in the PHC. Conclusion: PHC workers can be easily trained and deployed as oral health educators particularly in areas where there is shortage of oral health care workers.

Study protocol for a pilot quasi-experimental study on oral health education for nurses and community health workers in Nigeria

“…The opinions of key stakeholders consisting of a multidisciplinary team of experts at different levels of the health care system, including dentists and dental public health practitioners, public health practitioners (with vast experience in oral health education, promotion and programming) ( 26–30 ), nursing educators, community health educators, industry partners, policymakers, nurses, and community health workers were also sought to answer these questions. Oral health integration, specifically in the PHC system, has been described as an efficient and cost-effective way of promoting population oral health in developing countries ( 2 , 3 , 8 , 30 , 31 ). The information obtained from the knowledge gaps identified in the literature and stakeholder engagement guided the development of program objectives and outcomes using a logic model in step 2 ( Table 1 ).…”

“…Specific focus was placed on the integration of oral health into general health care services. The opinions of key stakeholders consisting of a multidisciplinary team of experts at different levels of the health care system, including dentists and dental public health practitioners, public health practitioners (with vast experience in oral health education, promotion and programming) (26)(27)(28)(29)(30), nursing educators, community health educators, industry partners, policymakers, nurses, and community health workers were also sought to answer these questions. Oral health integration, specifically in the PHC system, has been described as an efficient and cost-effective way of promoting population oral health in developing countries (2, 3, 8, 30, 31).…”

Predisposing, enabling and need factors influencing dental service utilization among a sample of adult Nigerians

“…Thus, a refocusing of service provision towards preventive care, as suggested in the National oral health policy, is advocated. One method of achieving this involves using the existing primary healthcare system, which has been relatively successful in making healthcare facilities accessible to most Nigerians, as a platform from which to provide preventive oral healthcare 37,38 . Watt 39 advocated for an 'upstream' approach to reducing oral health inequalities by moving from approaches that focus on treatment which do not address differences in access to healthy food, costs of toothbrushes, fluoridated toothpaste and preventive care.…”

The Effect of Promotion with Flipchart Media on Toothbrush Knowledge Levels of Maintaining Dental and Oral Health in Children

“…The advantage of flipcharts is that they are simple and effective print media in conveying information, making it easier for educational targets to understand the content of the material provided (Adeniyi et al, 2017). Flipchart media consists of sheets of paper bundled with ring binding so that they can be reversed, which contain messages and are explained with pictures that explain a topic in sufficient detail so that the delivery of information becomes concise and practical accompanied by direct explanations (Yandi et al, 2020).…”