Oral health and dental care in aged care facilities in New South Wales, Australia. Part 3 concordance between residents' perceptions and a professional dental examination.

Objectives: To determine the perceptions of dental care held by the residents in aged care facilities (ACFs) in New South Wales (NSW) and to compare these perceptions with clinical observations.

Background: No specific data exist relating to NSW residents' perceptions of dental care compared with a clinical examination. Planning for appropriate oral health programs in ACFs necessitate such data.

Materials And Methods: Four Area Health Services of Sydney and 25 low care ACFs were selected from which representative residents were sampled who completed a survey and underwent a basic dental examination.

Results: Of the subjects (25 males, 96 females), 76.9% had never received a dental visit as entering the ACF; 14.1% suffered from dental pain; 69.4% wore dentures and of these 18.3% required assistance in cleaning. Dentures were cleaned twice/day in 54.9% of cases. Natural teeth were reported present in 71.9% of residents, and 85.1% did not require assistance in cleaning. Appropriate dental care facilities and dry mouth were most frequent problems highlighted. Clinical examinations showed that 69% were denture wearers; oral hygiene and denture hygiene were considered good in 15.7% of cases. A high level of concordance existed between self-reports and examination.

Conclusions: Increased awareness about oral health across leadership, caregivers and residents with appropriate dental health education and dedicated space within facilities would provide a much needed improvement for addressing oral health issues of the ACF residents. This might be the right time to plan for the future challenges that will need to be met by the NSW care system.