The effects of an oral health promotion program in people with serious mental illness

Background. Several researchers have identified oral health problems in people with serious mental illness and have suggested that the cornerstone of any treatment strategy should be preventive dental education. The main purpose of this study was to investigate whether providing a brief Motivational Interviewing (MI) session before a dental education session would improve the oral hygiene routine of people with serious mental illness more than providing a dental education session (that includes instruction in tooth brushing and a reminder session) alone. A second purpose was to investigate whether providing a MI session before the dental education session would improve the internal motivation for performing regular tooth brushing in people with serious mental illness. A third purpose was to investigate whether providing a dental education session improves oral health knowledge in people with mental illness. Methods. Sixty individuals with serious mental illness were recruited to participate in an oral health promotion program, 56 participants completed the study. Group A (n=27) received a brief motivational interviewing session and dental education, Group B (n=29) received dental education alone. Outcome measures included plaque index scores, an oral health knowledge questionnaire, and the treatment self regulation questionnaire. All measures were administrated at baseline, after 4 weeks, and 8 weeks. Results. There was a statistically significant improvement in the plaque index scores and the oral health knowledge scores across time for both groups but group A improved significantly more when compared to group B in a repeated measures ANOVA, (p<0.05). There 4 was not a statistically significant improvement in the autonomous motivation scores for both groups across time but group A improved significantly more when compared to group B in a repeated measures ANOVA, (P<0.05). The autonomous motivation score increased 0.2 points for group A and declined 0.8 points for group B across time. Conclusion. The results of this study suggest that an oral hygiene program including brief MI session, dental education, oral hygiene instructions, and tooth brushing reminding system can improve the oral hygiene and the oral health knowledge of people with serious mental illness more than providing the same program without the brief MI session. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)