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Park and Lee: Perception and attitude on oral health related nutrition policies of elementary school nutritionists and school nurses
Original Article

J Korean Acad Oral Health 2017;41(3):173-180.

Published online: 15 September 2017

DOI: https://doi.org/10.11149/jkaoh.2017.41.3.173

Perception and attitude on oral health related nutrition policies of elementary school nutritionists and school nurses

So-Young Park, Heung-Soo Lee

Department of Preventive and Public Health Dentistry, College of Dentistry, Wonkwang University, Iksan, Korea

Corresponding Author: Heung-Soo Lee Department of Preventive and Public Health Dentistry, College of Dentistry, Wonkwang University, 460 Iksan-daero, Iksan 54538, Korea Tel: +82-63-850-6851 Fax: +82-63-850-6851 E-mail: smagn@wonkwang.ac.kr

Received 22 February 2017       Revised 28 August 2017       Accepted 13 September 2017

Copyright © 2017 by Journal of Korean Academy of Oral Health

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Objectives

The purpose of this study is to identify the perception and attitude of school nutritionists and school nurses at elementary schools for oral health related nutrition policies.

Methods

The subjects for this study included 1,051 elementary school nutritionists, nutrition teachers and school nurses in the Seoul, Gyeonggi and Jeolla provinces. self-administered surveys were conducted for the subjects of the study selected using the convenience sampling method.

Results

Sugar content labeling policies showed the highest approval rate among the oral health related nutrition policies, while policies for taxing sugary foods were the lowest. Overall, the highest acceptance rate was “traffic light labeling policies for food that causes dental caries” followed by “sugar content labeling policies.” Factors that had impact on oral health related nutrition policies included age, workplace, work experience, employment type and work category. The subjects agreed with most of the oral health nutrition policies.

Conclusions

Nutrition policies to improve oral health were required and a legal system that can support this is necessary.

Keywords: Attitude, Nursing, Nutrition policy, Nutritionist, Oral health, Schools

References

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Table 1.
Exploratory factor analysis results
Variable Sugars taxation Sugars labeling Caries prevention Caries prevention (children)
Carbonated beverage consumer tax policies 0.953
Sugar consumer tax policies 0.952
Sugar content labeling policies 0.940
Sugar types labeling policies 0.927
Dental caries risk level labeling policies 0.763
Non-dental caries food tax cut policies 0.742
Traffic light labeling policies for food that cause dental caries 0.674
Policies that apply dental caries induction indices on recommended sugar consumption 0.638
Policies on adding national health improvement taxes on foods that cause dental caries 0.617
Policies to limit advertising times for food that cause dental caries 0.775
Policies to restrict sales of food that cause dental caries in food safety protection zones 0.869
Eigen value 1.574 1.746 3.364 1.170
Variance (%) 14.307 15.870 30.584 10.634
Cumulative variance (%) 60.761 46.454 30.584 71.395
Cronbach's a 0.927 0.911 0.745 0.626
Table 2.
The general characteristics of the subjects (N=1,051
Variable N %
Age (yrs) ≤29 213 20.3
30-39 447 42.5
≥40 391 37.2
Work place Dong 537 51.1
Eup/Myeon 514 48.9
Work experience (yrs) ≤5 456 43.4
6-10 315 30.0
≥11 280 26.6
Employment type Full-time 536 51.0
Part-time 515 49.0
Occupation Nutrition teacher 276 26.3
Nutritionist 255 24.3
School nurse 520 49.4
Table 3.
Perception and attitude on oral health related nutrition policies Unit: %
Variable Agree (very) Neutral Dis agree (very)
Sugars taxation
Carbonated beverage consumer tax policies 49.9 (19.5) 16.9 33.2 (19.6)
Sugar consumer tax policies 42.8 (17.7) 20.8 36.4 (20.2)
Sugars labeling
Sugar content labeling policies 82.4 (59.6) 7.5 10.1 (5.4)
Sugar types labeling policies 82.1 (57.1) 8.3 9.6 (6.0)
Caries prevention
Dental caries risk level labeling policies 80.4 (55.8) 10.1 9.5 (4.8)
Non-dental caries food tax cut policies 68.0 (42.2) 16.3 15.7 (6.9)
Traffic light labeling policies for food that cause dental caries 83.1 (57.1) 9.8 7.1 (3.1)
Policies that apply dental caries induction indices on recommended sugar consumption 73.8 (47.4) 8.8 17.4 (9.4)
Policies on adding national health improvement taxes on foods that cause dental caries 51.3 (33.0) 17.9 30.8 (15.3)
Caries prevention - children
Policies to limit advertising times for food that cause dental caries 76.6 (55.5) 12.9 10.5 (5.0)
Policies to restrict sales of food that cause dental caries in food safety protection zones 58.3 (42.8) 16.0 25.7 (12.5)
Etc.
Toothfriendly sweets labeling policies 30.7 (14.2) 13.2 56.1 (32.6)
Alternative sweeteners suggestion policy at school meals 65.7 (43.4) 14.3 20.0 (10.2)
Table 4.
Perception and attitude on oral health related nutrition policies according to general characteristics
Variable Oral health related nutrition policies Sub-fields
Sugars taxation Sugars labeling Caries prevention Caries prevention (children)
Age (yrs)
≤29 3.35±0.48 2.93±0.84 3.67±0.60 3.45±0.54 3.24±0.70
30-39 3.49±0.40 3.17±0.84 3.62±0.71 3.56±0.49 3.48±0.66
≥40 3.58±0.34 3.16±0.88 3.87±0.42 3.60±0.52 3.65±0.57
P<0.001 P=0.002 P<0.001 P=0.002 P<0.001
Work place
Dong 3.48±0.41 3.06±0.86 3.72±0.59 3.54±0.52 3.49±0.65
Eup/Myeon 3.51±0.40 3.18±0.86 3.73±0.62 3.57±0.51 3.50±0.65
P=0.143 P=0.021 P=0.852 P=0.391 P=0.911
Work experience (yrs)
≤5 3.41±0.43 3.02±0.84 3.66±0.63 3.49±0.51 3.35±0.67
6-10 3.52±0.38 3.09±0.89 3.67±0.70 3.59±0.52 3.60±0.64
≥11 3.60±0.35 3.29±0.84 3.89±0.38 3.60±0.51 3.61±0.59
P<0.001 P<0.001 P<0.001 P=0.006 P<0.001
Employment type
Full-time 3.55±0.37 3.19±0.85 3.76±0.58 3.60±0.50 3.57±0.60
Part-time 3.43±0.43 3.04±0.87 3.69±0.62 3.50±0.52 3.41±0.70
P<0.001 P=0.006 P=0.076 P=0.001 P<0.001
Occupation
Nutrition teacher & Nutritionist 3.60±0.37 3.52±0.68 3.82±0.49 3.58±0.48 3.54±0.56
School nurse 3.38±0.41 2.71±0.83 3.63±0.69 3.52±0.54 3.45±0.73
P<0.001 P<0.001 P<0.001 P=0.055 P=0.035

The data were analysed by t-test or ANOVA.

Table 5.
Factors affecting perceptions and attitudes toward oral health related nutrition policy
Variable B S.E b t P
Constant 4.393 0.079 55.518 0.000
Age (yrs) 0.085 0.020 0.162 4.165 <0.001
Work place (Dong=0) 0.063 0.024 0.081 2.639 0.008
Work experience (yrs) 0.042 0.019 0.089 2.250 0.025
Employment type (Full-time=0) ―0.065 0.025 ―0.084 ―2.572 0.010
Occupation (Nutrition teacher & Nutritionist=0) ―0.097 0.023 ―0.125 ―4.122 <0.001
R2=0.110, Adjusted R2=0.106, F=25.815

The data were analysed by multiple regression. P<0.001.

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