Primary Healthcare Providers Ability, Performance and Willingness to Provide Varnish Fluoride Therapy for Children

Background and Objective: Primary health care providers (PHCPs) deliver varnish fluoride therapy to children1. Since the quality of varnish fluoride therapy affects by providers’ ability and practice2, this study aimed to evaluate the ability, performance, and willingness of PHCPs about delivering this service to children. Materials and Methods: In this descriptive-analytical cross-sectional study, all PHCPs (n=122) from Najaf-Abad, Isfahan filled a valid and reliable self-administrated structured questionnaire asking about their ability, performance, and willingness toward providing varnish fluoride therapy for children. Data gathered in a five-point Likert scale and analyzed with SPSS 17. Findings: Response rate was 96.7%. Only 8.4% of participants had a high ( much or very much ) willingness to deliver varnish fluoride to children. 55.2% of PHCPs had good or very good ability to perform varnish fluoride therapy. Furthermore, 67.7%, 16.7%, and 67.7% of participants mixed the varnish fluoride with the applicator before use, applied varnish fluoride for both primary and permanent teeth and used it for both sound and decayed teeth, respectively. A significant but indirect correlation was observed between willingness and work experience (r= -0.31, p value<0.05). There were no relationship between ability and performance with attending continuous training courses, the hours of received educational programs, gender, and university degrees (p value> 0.05). Conclusion: Despite of attending continuous training courses and enabling programs, PHCPs had low ability and high flaws in performing varnish fluoride. Additionally, the majority of participants were reluctant to deliver varnish fluoride to children. Therefore, it seems planners and educators should reevaluate existing training courses and design new programs based on encouraging the PHCPs to accomplish the task more enthusiastically and cover their needs more efficiently.

کلیدواژه ها:

Primary healthcare provider ، Varnish fluoride ، Ability ، Performance ، Willingness.