Oral Health Literacy of the Caregivers of Adults with Intellectual and Developmental

Download or read book Oral Health Literacy of the Caregivers of Adults with Intellectual and Developmental written by Amy Ruth Aston and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Objective: The purpose of this study was to investigate the oral health understanding and literacy of caregivers of intellectually or developmentally disabled adults and determine if there is a difference in family caregivers’ literacy versus paid caregivers in terms of reading ability and oral health literacy. Methods: Caregivers who brought adult patients with intellectual or developmental disability to the Nisonger Center Dental Clinic were recruited to participate in this voluntary study. They were asked demographic questions, and administered the following instruments: the Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory 6 (STAI-6), the Rapid Estimate of Adult Literacy in Dentistry (REALD-30), and the word reading and sentence comprehension subsets of the Wider Range Achievement Test 4 (WRAT-4). Results: Forty-two caregivers participated; however, 1 dropped out leaving a sample of 41 for analysis. Paid caregivers composed 80% of the sample. Family caregivers scored significantly better than paid caregivers on all of the validated reading instruments. The STAI-6 was consistent and not significant among the caregiver groups. There were no associations between age and sex and any outcomes. Higher education was associated with higher scores for all the different reading instruments. Conclusions: Family caregivers were more proficient in reading and were more familiar with words commonly used in the dental field. Paid caregivers would benefit from training in oral health. More research is needed regarding this topic.