The influence of the sociodemographic context of families on children's oral health: research study

• Autor(a) principal: Oliveira, Daniela Gomes
• Data de Publicação: 2023
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10284/12602
• topic: Oral health; Pediatric patients; Children; Social inequalities; Disparities; Sociodemographic; Socioeconomic; Access; Dentistry; Oral care; Saúde oral; Pacientes pediátricos; Crianças; Desigualdades sociais; Disparidades; Sociodemográfico; Socioeconómico; Acesso; Dentária; Cuidados orais; Domínio/Área Científica::Ciências Médicas::Medicina Clínica

Objectives: Evaluate whether the socio-demographic and economic context of the families of a population (whose children receive dental treatments at Clínicas Pedagógicas de Medicina Dentária da Faculdade de Ciências da Saúde da Universidade Fernando Pessoa) has an impact on the oral health of pediatric patients, their oral health behaviors and adherence to dental appointments. Materials and methods: A cross-sectional observational study was carry out, applying a face-to-face questionnaire for parents/legal guardians of children aged 2 to 12 years old receiving dental treatment at CPMD FCS-UFP. The oral health status of the child was assessed by consulting the records made in the first Pediatric Dental appointment, in the odontogram of the computer program available in the pedagogical clinic for this purpose. Descriptive/inferential data analysis was performed using IBM© SPSS© Statistics vs. 29.0 software (p<0.05). Results: Forty responses were obtained. Some significant impacts were observed regarding the lower educational level of the caregivers (3rd cycle or less), lower household’s level of income and higher number of children (>2), as these were associated (p<0.05) with an increased median of the number of decayed teeth and/or the number of missing teeth and/or the number of filled teeth and/or the decayed, missing and filled teeth index. Conclusions: The dentists’ recognition of these socio-demographic and economic disparities is vital for appropriate intervention. Enhancing the oral health literacy of caregivers becomes crucial in addressing information accessibility gaps among diverse social groups.