Confident Care, Healthier Smiles: Improving Spanish-Language Oral Health Education

Purpose: With a rapidly growing Hispanic population in the state of North Carolina, dental hygiene (DH) and dental (DDS) student preparation in dental Spanish is crucial. Resources for dental Spanish may be lacking and inconsistent resulting in limited confidence with treatment and delivery of oral hygiene instructions (OHI) to Spanish-speaking patients (SSPs). The purpose of this study was to determine the confidence levels of student providers when treating and delivering OHI to SSPs. Methods: Pre-post surveys were administered to DH and DDS students at the UNC Adams School of Dentistry (UNC ASOD) prior to and following a Spanish-language OHI lesson. Lesson structure included a pre-post assessment to test knowledge and a presentation on common OHI terminology. Surveys collected demographic information, previous experience with dental Spanish, confidence levels related to treating SSPs, and willingness to utilize dental Spanish resources. Survey question types included multiple choice, Likert scale, and open ended. Descriptive statistics, multivariate analysis, and thematic analysis were used to analyze data. Results: Survey participants included DH and DDS students from 42 matched pre- and post-surveys. The majority (73.81%) of participants reported treating at least one SSP per semester. Pre-survey respondents reported “not confident at all” for confidence in using dental terminology with SSPs (71.43%) and providing OHI to SSPs (64.29%) while post-surveys reported at least “somewhat confident” for the same categories respectively (97.61%, 92.85%) at a statistically significant level (p<0.05). Pre-post knowledge assessments on basic OHI terminology completed during the lesson included 60 matched assessments significantly increasing from an average score of 90% to 98%. Conclusion: DH and DDS students expressed a significant increase in knowledge on basic dental Spanish OHI terminology and confidence with using dental Spanish terminology following the lesson. Participants suggested that students at UNC ASOD would benefit from continued dental Spanish lessons.