Dental hygiene students' views on a service-learning residential aged care placement program.

PURPOSE To record the views of final year dental hygiene students from the University of Newcastle, Australia about a placement in 17 residential aged care facilities, on the NSW Central Coast. METHODS Final year dental hygiene students undertook a 12 week placement, 1 day per week, in 1 of 17 residential aged care facilities. They were asked to participate in focus group discussions after the placement to determine their ability to transition from the classroom to the real-life experience of the residential aged care facility placement. RESULTS Students felt ill-equipped for the aged care placement program even though they had attended a pre-placement orientation. Students expressed feelings of being overwhelmed by the residential aged care environment, particularly by the smells and unexpected sights of the aged, fragile and cognitively impaired residents, and the difficulties in providing them with oral hygiene care. CONCLUSION To enable students to transition from the classroom to the aged care environment in a more effective manner, a more realistic pre-placement orientation program is necessary.