Improving the knowledge, attitudes and behaviors of pre-school teachers on oral and dental health in Trabzon-Ortahisar district

Occupational groups that are in close contact with children and their parents are important in terms of guiding families to improve oral hygiene, nutrition and oral care habits in the prevention of early childhood caries and other oral health problems. Preschool teachers, one of the most important of these groups, have the opportunity to positively influence children during their growth and development periods by being in close contact with many children and their parents. For this reason, in this study, it was aimed to raise awareness about oral health and develop knowledge, attitude and behavior levels by giving oral health education to preschool educators in Trabzon-Ortahisar district, in accordance with the need for oral health education which is indicated by the results of a survey study that was conducted to determine the oral health knowledge, attitudes and behaviors of preschool educators in same area. For this purpose, teachers were given the lesson titled 'Oral and Dental Health in Children'. At the end of the third month following the lessons, their level of knowledge, attitude and behaviors were measured by a questionnaire. Persistence of the informations given in the lessons were examined with the re-application of the same questionnaire at the end of the first year. According to the results of the questionnaire applications, teachers' level of knowledge was high in almost all of the topics mentioned in the lessons (general thoughts on dental caries, nutrition and prevention of dental caries, time of the first dental visit and dental care, fluoride, traumatic dental injuries and oral sucking habits). However, a statistically significant decrease was found in the level of knowledge in many of the topics evaluated after a year (p<0.05). Oral health education should be emphasized comprehensively starting from teachers' undergraduate programs and studies on this subject should focus on more sustainable approaches. We believe that further studies would be beneficial in order to provide permanent behavioral changes and sustained transfer of information to teachers over a long period of time.