Purpose: Healthcare professionals (HCPs) play a key role in improving the health literacy of patients. Since oral health is an essential part of overall health, the objective of this study was to assess the knowledge and attitudes about oral health among registered nurses.
Materials and methods: A four-component questionnaire was used to assess the oral health training, oral health knowledge and attitudes of registered nurses. Participants were recruited from the city of Montpellier, France, and the surrounding area between May and June 2022 via e-mail and social media.
Results: In total, 416 responses were included in our study. Only 35.8% of nurses reported that they had received specific training on oral health and 24.3% had never advised patients to consult a dentist. Participants demonstrated good overall knowledge, but stated there were weaknesses in a variety of areas, such as oral health in children. The nurses proposed methods to improve understanding of the importance of oral health, namely by setting up training courses and better interdisciplinary collaboration.
Conclusion: Our study showed that some aspects of oral health are not well understood by nurses. Initial training should be improved and supplemental training should be offered to improve the knowledge, attitude and practices of nurses in order to improve patient care.
Keywords: attitude; knowledge; literacy; nurses; oral health prevention; training.