Oral Health and Hygiene Content in Nursing Fundamentals Textbooks

The purpose of this paper is to describe the quantity and quality of oral hygiene content in a representative sample of before-licensure nursing fundamentals textbooks. Seven textbooks were examined. Quantity was operationalized as the actual page count and percentage of content devoted to oral health and hygiene. Quality of content was operationalized as congruency with best mouth care practices. Best mouth care practices included evidence-based and consensus-based practices as published primarily by the American Dental Association and supported by both published nursing research and review articles specific to mouth care and published dental research and review articles specific to mouth care. Content devoted to oral health and hygiene averaged 0.6%. Although the quality of the content was highly variable, nearly every textbook contained some erroneous or outdated information. The most common areas for inaccuracy included the use of foam sponges for mouth care in dentate persons instead of soft toothbrushes and improper denture removal.