Healthcare providers' experiences of assessing and performing oral care in older adults.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study was to describe healthcare providers' experiences, knowledge and attitudes in relation to the assessment of oral health in older adults.

BACKGROUND: Oral health is an important element in the care of older adults. An increasing proportion of older people need the help and support of community-based healthcare services, which are responsible for providing oral health assessment for this group. Although oral care is an important part of nursing care, studies show that it is often an overlooked area in the care of older people.

DESIGN: An inductive qualitative description design was used.

METHODS: The participating healthcare providers were selected from a municipality in western Sweden. Purposeful sampling was employed and data were collected through focus-group interviews and were analysed with content analysis.

RESULTS: The analysis resulted in four categories: healthcare providers' knowledge and attitudes to oral health; routines affect flexibility; challenges in assessing and performing oral care and ethical dilemmas. The results showed that oral health was neglected because of several factors. Lack of knowledge, inadequate procedures and time constraints were most prominent. The healthcare providers' own attitudes affected the performing of oral health assessments. Ethical dilemmas related to the attitudes of those people in receipt of care and their relatives, and their integrity and autonomy, could be seen as complicating factors.

CONCLUSIONS: The healthcare providers expressed that they did not have the necessary knowledge of oral health that was required in their area of responsibility. In addition, they described their own attitudes as being important when attending to the patients' oral health.

IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: The healthcare providers themselves identified lack of knowledge and their own attitudes as being especially important factors in the oral care of older adults, and further research in this area is needed.