Relação entre o senso de coerência materno e os comportamentos em saúde bucal de pré-escolares

Abstract

The salutogenic theory studies how and why people remain healthy even in adverse and stressful situations, having as central idea the sense of coherence (SOC). The higher the sense of coherence, that is, the overall ability to see life, the more effectively the individual will be able to cope with the difficulties of life. Few studies have investigated the relationship of maternal sense of coherence and behavior in relation to the oral health of the sons. Thus, this study aimed to verify the relationship between maternal sense of coherence and behaviors related to oral health of pre-school children living in the urban area of the city of Pelotas / RS. A cross-sectional study was carried out on a sample of children aged 2 to 5 years old and their mothers, attending in 12 health care centers randomly selected during in the National Vaccination Campaign Day. A total of 534 children and their mothers participated in the study. Demographic information, socioeconomic status, oral hygiene and feeding habits of the child, use of dental services by the child, screening of common mental disorders of the mother and evaluation of the maternal sense of coherence were collected through interviews with the mothers. The associations between outcome variables (frequency of eating sweet foods and drinks between meals, how the child's teeth are brushed and experience of dental consultation of the child) and maternal demographic, socioeconomic and psychosocial characteristics were assessed evaluated by Fisher's exact tests, chi-square and chi-square of linear trend, when pertinent. In the multivariate analysis, the Poisson regression with robust variance (P <0.05) was used to verify the association between the outcome variables and the maternal sense of coherence, adjusted by the confounding factors, from which the ratio of prevalence (PR) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI). After adjusting for maternal age, family income, maternal schooling, family nucleus and maternal common mental disorders,it was found that the prevalence of inadequately brushing the teeth (the child brushes the teeth alone or never brushed) was 70% higher among children whose mothers had less sense of coherence than in children of mothers with more sense of coherence [OR 1.70 (95% CI: 1.11-2.61)] [ RP 1.70 (95% CI: 1.11-2.61)]. In relation to a higher frequency of sweet food intake between meals [RP 1.17 (95% CI: 0.73-1.88)], higher frequency of sweet drink intake between meals [RP 1.02 (IC95 %0.85-1.21)] and to the fact that the child never visited the dentist [RP 0.97 (95% CI: 0.84-1.11)] there was no statistically significant association with the lowest maternal SOC. Maternal SOC was unrelated to all oral health behaviors tested in this study. The findings indicate that maternal SOC may be a psychosocial indicator in the acquisition of appropriate oral hygiene habits in preschoolers.