caa a22 4500 397516975 CHVBK 20180308164621.0 cr unu---uuuuu 161202s1995 xx s 000 0 eng 10.1093/eurpub/5.3.204 doi (NATIONALLICENCE)oxford-10.1093/eurpub/5.3.204 Beliefs and experiences of oral health educators in Finnish health centres [Elektronische Daten] [MARJA LAIHO, EINO HONKALA] In Finland the personnel with the greatest oral health education (OHE) work-load are dental assistants and dental hygienists. Some of the OH educators spend the main part of their working time in OHE and can be considered to be full-time health educators. Others are part-time or occasional health educators. The aims of this study were to determine the beliefs, motivation, experiences, feedback, goal determination and methods of health education adopted by the OH educators in Finnish health centres. The 2 OH educators with the most OHE duties from every Finnish health centre (221) were asked to answer a questionnaire. Altogether 323 OH educators returned an acceptable questionnaire. Almost all (96%) of the respondents believed that OHE certainly or at least to some extent had affected the oral health habits of their patients. Their own enthusiasm was reported as a reason for choosing an OHE career by 50% of the respondents. OH educators described their work more frequently as difficult than easy, effective than ineffective, inspiring than boring, many-sided than simple and rewarding than frustrating. The most frequently mentioned inconveniences were the lack of OHE materials and the lack of systematic plans for OHE. Their professional training for OHE was felt to be adequate by 44% of the hygienists, 25% of the OHE dental assistants, 24% of the dental assistants and 16% of the dentists. It was rare that the goals of OHE were written in the patients' records; only 15% of the educators did so frequently. The most important means of promoting oral health were the model of the parents, encouraging and strengthening self-confidence and removing dental anxiety. It is concluded that the OHE personnel in Finland are well motivated and enthusiastic, but they lack more systematic plans, demonstration materials and professional training for OHE and their awareness of goals should be improved. © European Journal of Public Health ORIGINAL ARTICLES nationallicence health education nationallicence oral health nationallicence dentistry nationallicence LAIHO MARJA Health Authority, Pori Finland aut HONKALA EINO Department of Preventive Dentistry and Cariology, Faculty of Dentistry, University of Kuopio Finland aut The European Journal of Public Health Oxford University Press 5/3(1995), 204-208 1101-1262 5:3<204 1995 5 eurpub https://doi.org/10.1093/eurpub/5.3.204 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1093/eurpub/5.3.204 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- LAIHO MARJA Health Authority, Pori Finland aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- HONKALA EINO Department of Preventive Dentistry and Cariology, Faculty of Dentistry, University of Kuopio Finland aut NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- The European Journal of Public Health Oxford University Press 5/3(1995), 204-208 1101-1262 5:3<204 1995 5 eurpub Metadata rights reserved CC BY-NC-4.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0 nationallicence BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-oxford