Oral Health in Prison: a Study on Improving Prisoners' Oral Health

This study investigates the effects of an intervention based on Motivational Interviewing (MI) on oral hygiene, oral cleaning routines, and attitudes towards own oral health. The first step is for the dental staff to ask open questions to the prisoner about their oral health or oral health behavior. The next step is to confirm to the prisoner what he or she is doing. The third step is called reflection. At this stage, dental staff tries to provide reflections on what the prisoner have said, for example by repeating what the prisoner have said or say the same using synonyms (simple reflection), by extracting the underlying opinion or feeling (complex reflection), or by illuminate both negative and positive sides of the situation (double sided reflection). The final step is to summarize the conversation. In addition, the intervention includes a change plan, in which the prisoner and dental staff agrees on specific behavior that the prisoner should follow based on the MI conversation.