Effectiveness of an oral health education programme for older adults using a workbook.

Objective: This study investigated the effects of an oral health education programme utilising a workbook for people aged 65 years or older.

Materials And Methods: A pre-post quasi-experimental design was used to verify the effectiveness of an oral health education programme using a workbook. Oral health education was provided once a week for 5 weeks from May to June 2019. Intervention group I only received lectures on oral health education, while intervention group II reviewed the content using the workbook immediately after the lecture. Chi-square test, Fisher's exact test and a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) were conducted to compare differences among the three groups; a paired t test was also carried out to identify the changes before and after the programme.

Results: Intervention group I showed a significant increase of 3.52 on oral health knowledge and 3.47 on oral health recognition, while exhibiting a significant decrease of 0.21 on the O'Leary index and 0.69 on the tongue coating index. Intervention group II depicted a significant increase of 4.48 on oral health knowledge and 3.97 on oral health recognition and a significant decrease of 0.32 on the O'Leary index and 2.10 on the tongue coating index.

Conclusions: The oral health education programme using the workbook increased knowledge and recognition of oral health and lowered the O'Leary and tongue coating indexes. Hence, the use of a workbook may facilitate the effectiveness of oral health education for older people.