Teaching guide to support the Oral Self Exam

Abstract

Oral self-examination is one of the preventive methods to detect oral cancer.

Objective: To implement a Didactic Guide to support Oral Self-Examination for use in preventive activities of oral cancer.

Methodological design: An investigation of technological innovation was carried out with experimental design, where, based on the identification of learning needs regarding oral self-examination, a teaching medium was designed to support this procedure, validated by experts and began to be applied in December 2018. 47 people over 60 years old belonging to the Grandparents House “Antonio Dicirst Martínez” of Matanzas are taken as universe.

Results: 100% of respondents were unaware of oral self-examination and 89.36% indicated interest in learning about oral health. 70.21% of the total did not present smoking habits and with respect to alcohol consumption, 80.25% said they did not drink alcoholic beverages. 87.23% of respondents considered the implementation of educational material as positive, without any negative criteria.

Conclusions: All respondents were unaware of oral self-examination and expressed interest in learning about this topic. A Guide to support oral self-examination was developed and its implementation was subsequently evaluated where the level of satisfaction of the participants in this research was demonstrated.