Abstract:
We interviewed 36 primary care nurses in three Dutch nursing homes regarding the functional oral health and dental treatment needs of 331 care-dependent residents (average age 77.8 years). The nurses assessed the residents\' oral health condition as good (8.3 on a scale of 0 to 10). Edentulous residents wearing dentures were considered to have better functional oral health than dentate residents wearing partial dentures and edentulous residents not wearing dentures. According to the nurses, only 9% of the residents required dental treatment. This finding is in contrast with an intraoral study of the same population, in which dentists determined that 73% of the residents needed dental treatment.