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Objectives: The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of interprofessional educational programmes on the improvement of nursing students' oral assessment performances by comparing their attitudes, confidence, abilities, and self‐performance before and after the education. Materials and methods: The subjects included 112 first‐year nursing students in a Japanese nursing school. They participated in the oral assessment educational programmes, which were supported by dentists and introduced into the 1‐year curriculum. The first programme was a 1.5‐hr lecture with a self‐oral assessment training in May 2018, and the second was a 1‐hr oral assessment training in October 2018. The questionnaire surveys investigating nursing students' attitudes, confidence, and self‐performance regarding oral assessment and the tests measuring their oral assessment abilities were conducted before and after the programmes. The total scores on the tests were 0–9 points. Results: A total of 101 (90.2%) nursing students responded to all the questionnaires and tests. Their attitudes and confidence regarding oral assessment were significantly improved after the programmes. The total average scores on the tests were significantly increased from 6.8 points at baseline to 7.9 points after the programmes. The percentage of their performance of self‐oral assessment every day significantly increased from 15.8% at baseline to 32.7% after the programmes. Conclusions: These results suggested that the educational programme might be effective in improving not only the students' attitudes and confidence regarding oral assessment but also their oral assessment abilities and self‐oral assessment performance. Therefore, future programmes must focus on training them to improve oral health care referrals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study aimed to investigate the usefulness of a newly developed oral simulator for nursing students' oral assessment education on oral diseases and symptoms., Materials and Methods: The participants were first-year students (n=105) at a nursing school in Japan. Ten identical oral simulators with angular cheilitis, missing teeth, dental caries, calculus, periodontitis, hypoglossal induration, food debris, and crust formation were created by a team of dentists. After a 45-minute lecture programme for oral assessment performance with the Oral Health Assessment Tool (OHAT), the ability test with the simulators and the OHAT as well as test feedback were conducted in a 30-minute practical programme. To evaluate the effectiveness of the programmes, questionnaires and ability tests with slides of oral images were conducted at baseline and after the programme., Results: Ninety-nine students (94.3%) participated in this study. The results of the ability test with the simulators and the OHAT in the practical programme showed that the correct answer rates of assessing tongue, gingiva, present teeth, and oral pain were less than 40%. Their levels of confidence, perception, and oral assessment performance were statistically significantly higher after the programmes than they were at baseline. Their level of confidence in assessing the need for dental referral had the largest increase in scores compared to the lowest scores at baseline in the nine post-programme assessment categories., Conclusions: This study identified several problems with nursing students' oral assessment skills and improvements of their oral assessment confidence, perceptions and performance.