Effectiveness of educational intervention of oral health for special needs on knowledge of dental students in Saudi Arabia.

Background: It is critical to educate dental students on the essential aspects of oral care for persons with special health care needs (shcn) as they acquire more dental diseases and 80% not receiving routine dental care.

Objective/hypothesis: To evaluate awareness and knowledge of dental students concerning oral-health care for persons with shcn, and to assess the effectiveness of an educational intervention in improving their knowledge.

Methods: Students completed an evaluation in the form of pre-post questionnaires that were answered before and immediately after the 30- minute dvd educational intervention regarding the oral health care of persons with shcn. ancova test where used to adjust for the pre knowledge and dependent t-tests were used.

Results: The mean ± sd of pre-test scores of all students was 15.46 ± 2.97, which increased to 18.09 ± 3.37 on the post-test. the post knowledge scores by dental class (adjusted for the pre knowledge) showed weak-significate anacova f test p value was (p < 0.050) however there was weak significant difference between the combined five years when compared (p < 0.050). however multiple comparison test (scheffe test) showed weak significance between d2 and d3 (p < 0.067). in addition, there was weak significant difference between post scores for each year when compared (p < 0.05).

Conclusions: The educational intervention was effective in providing all five levels of dental students with the basic instructive information needed to care for persons with shcn. about 62% of students from all five years rated their knowledge as being minimal and about 98% reported they would use the information provided in the educational intervention.