The idea of final-year dental students, Scott Santarossa and Anooshree Katwe, has the potential to make a big difference in the Deaf community.
Scott says before he started Dental School, he studied Auslan (Australian Sign Language) for a year in Melbourne, which sparked his interest in the Deaf community.
“I did the Certificates 2 and 3 full-time and it was great,” Scott recalls. “Once I finish dentistry I plan to go back and complete my training in Auslan by doing the Cert 4 and a Diploma.”
When Scott started Dental School and found out there was a research component, he hoped to combine his interest in dentistry and the Deaf community.
“I approached the research coordinator, Dr Omar Kujan, and expressed interest in researching the Deaf community. When I mentioned dental anxiety as a topic, he thought that was a great idea and was enthusiastic about supervising the project himself. Then I spoke to Anooshree, who was interested in my sign language journey, and she was keen to be involved.”
For their project ‘Dental Anxiety in the Deaf Community’, Scott and Anooshree looked at dental students' knowledge of the Deaf community. They then interviewed Deaf people about their experiences at the dentist via Auslan interpreters.
“We asked about 18 members of the Deaf community if they had any issues and how they have found communication and we were quite shocked,” Scott says.
“We are still doing the analysis, but anecdotally I can say there were multiple people who were interviewed who had treatment done that they weren’t sure about. They might have had a gold crown placed and they thought they were getting a tooth-coloured crown. Or they had teeth extracted and they didn’t know why.”
Deaf patients could not always easily access the services of an Auslan interpreter for an appointment, and many of the interview participants mentioned they needed some sort of resource because being in the dental chair was an overwhelming experience for many.
“My experience with the Deaf community is they really value sharing accessible resources as they are hard to come by,” Scott says. “We looked around and couldn’t find anything in Auslan related to even general medical health, let alone dentistry.”
Scott and Anooshree noticed an advertisement for the Healthy Smiles Community Grant and on a whim, applied, and won the $11,000 grant. With these unexpected funds, and with the feedback from their interviews with members of the Deaf community in mind, Scott and Anooshree decided to use the grant money to make videos for the Deaf population that explains dental procedures and oral health concepts.
Working closely with Deaf Australia’s CEO Jen Blyth and ADA’s Oral Health Promoter Dr Mikaela Chinotti, their collection of videos, Smiling Signs, is taking shape.
“We go through a rigorous review process for each video,” Scott says. “We get ADA to ensure they are sound in terms of dental accuracy and we get the Auslan translation done by a Deaf consultant and have that checked to ensure the Auslan itself is easily understood.
“The videos are suitable not just for Deaf people, but for those with limited English or who have anxiety about going into an appointment,” he adds. “There are visual images along with written English captions, spoken English and of course, Auslan.”
The videos are available on YouTube: bit.ly/3R2Glh8 and on: teeth.org.au/smiling-signs
A Deaf Awareness Training course for dentists to improve their communication skills with Deaf patients (provided by Access Plus WA) has been organised to
be held at ADA House on October 29.
“We wanted to cater Deaf awareness training to dentists,” Anooshree explains. “They don’t have to learn Auslan, although that would be amazing, but there are small things that can easily be done. For example, if there is an interpreter at the appointment – talking and maintaining eye contact with the Deaf patient instead of the interpreter is important, even though you are hearing the interpreter speak. You would be surprised that it happens very often where clinicians speak directly to the interpreter as if the Deaf person is not there. This not only makes the patient feel unseen but also extends to other ethical issues such as consent.”
Scott adds a representative from Access Plus WA will provide a Deaf awareness training course customised for dentists on the day. “There will be some basic Auslan, how to use interpreters, what to do if you don’t have an interpreter and the logistics about who should book the interpreter,” he explains. “Basic communication skills with Deaf people will also be discussed, which are very translatable – it is a good general communication course – and it’s free.
“We welcome students, dentists, specialists, oral hygiene therapists, dental assistants – anyone really within the dental industry who is patient facing – to improve their communication skills with Deaf people.”
The course will also be the launch event for the Smiling Signs Auslan Resource. To book for the course, go to adawa.com.au/smilingsigns
Scott and Anooshree are busily adding more videos to the Smiling Signs collection – and they would like to do more research into the Deaf community.
“We have just touched the surface of the research – dental anxiety is just one aspect,” Scott says.” I would love to know if that anxiety relates to an increased caries prevalence or increased burden of disease.”
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