Prenatal oral health education in U.S. dental schools and obstetrics and gynecology residencies
Document Type
Journal ArticlePublication Date
2013-11-01Keywords
Cross-Sectional StudiesCurriculum
Education, Dental, Graduate
Faculty, Dental
Female
Gynecology
Health Care Surveys
Health Education, Dental
Health Policy
Humans
Internship and Residency
Obstetrics
Oral Health
Organizational Policy
Pregnancy
Prenatal Education
Schools, Dental
Societies, Medical
United States
Dental education
Oral health education
Women’s health
Obstetrics and gynecology
Oral health
Pregnancy
Dental Public Health and Education
Dentistry
Medical Education
Obstetrics and Gynecology
Women's Health
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Prenatal oral health (POH) is an important health issue, but dental and obstetrical clinicians are not meeting the oral health needs of pregnant patients. This study evaluates how training contributes to this paradox with a national survey of sixty dental school deans and 240 obstetrics and gynecology residency program directors. Response rates were 53 percent and 40 percent for deans and program directors, respectively. According to the respondents, 94 percent of responding dental schools provided POH education, only 39 percent of responding residencies taught POH, and 65 percent of responding deans and 45 percent of responding program directors were aware of current POH guidelines. The residencies exposing trainees to guidelines were three times more likely to have POH training. Barriers to POH education were reported to include too few pregnant patients in clinical settings (for responding dental schools) and lack of faculty expertise (for responding residencies). The majority of responding deans and program directors agreed they would add more POH education if the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists issued a policy statement or practice bulletin. The majority of responding dental deans reported teaching POH in their schools, but clinical exposure was limited; less than half of responding residencies included POH training. Future efforts should include distribution of POH guidelines/consensus statements to educators and learners, increasing exposure of dental students to pregnant patients, and developing faculty expertise in residencies.Source
Curtis M, Silk HJ, Savageau JA. Prenatal oral health education in U.S. dental schools and obstetrics and gynecology residencies. J Dent Educ. 2013 Nov;77(11):1461-8. Link to article on publisher's websitePermanent Link to this Item
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14038/30067PubMed ID
24192411Notes
Megan (Weeks) Curtis participated in this study as a medical student in the 2013 Senior Scholars research program at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.
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Link to article in PubMedRights
Publisher PDF posted as allowed by the publisher's author rights policy at http://www.jdentaled.org/site/misc/Reprint_policy.xhtml.Collections
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