title: Assessment of the oral health condition of nursing home residents by primary care nurses.
abstract: We interviewed 36 primary care nurses in three Dutch nursing homes regarding the functional oral health and dental treatment needs of 331 care-dependent residents (average age 77.8 years). The nurses assessed the residents' oral health condition as good (8.3 on a scale of 0 to 10). Edentulous residents wearing dentures were considered to have better functional oral health than dentate residents wearing partial dentures and edentulous residents not wearing dentures. According to the nurses, only 9% of the residents required dental treatment. This finding is in contrast with an intraoral study of the same population, in which dentists determined that 73% of the residents needed dental treatment.
authors.affiliation: Department of Oral-Maxillofacial Surgery and Special Dental Care, UMC Utrecht, the Netherlands.
authors.forename: P F M
authors.initials: PF
authors.lastname: Gerritsen
authors.forename: A J P
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Schrijvers
authors.forename: M S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Cune
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: van der Bilt
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: de Putter
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D007297:Inpatients; D009730:Nursing Assessment; D009735:Nursing Homes; D009909:Oral Health; D011320:Primary Health Care; D000078329:Workforce
keywords: dental treatment needs; nursing home; oral health condition; primary care nurse