Percepção dos pais sobre necessidade de consulta odontológica para os filhos adolescentes participantes de uma coorte de nascimentos

Abstract

During adolescence, intense psychological, physiological and social changes occur. The individual is in a period of transition between childhood and adulthood, experiencing a mixture of dependence and autonomy. In addition, it is a period of risk for oral health, as it is at this stage that permanent dentition is almost completed and the individual has a certain repulsion in relation to oral hygiene and develops greater independence in relation to food consumption, being able to opt for the most sugary. The present study aimed to investigate the perception of parents or caregivers about he current need for dental appointment for adolescents in a birth cohort, aged 12 and 13, and the factors associated with this perception. It was a cross-sectional study nested in a birth cohort, using the data obtained in the follow-up of the birth cohort in 2004 in the city of Pelotas, more specifically the general follow-up at 11 years old and the oral health sub-sample at 12-13 years old. The exposure variables are sociodemographic, such as the adolescent's gender, per capita family income, maternal education, mother's skin color, and also related to the adolescent's oral health, such as history of dental pain in the last 6 months, self-perception of oral health compared to other adolescents, tooth decay, gum bleeding and malocclusion. The outcome variable studied was the adolescent's current need for dental appointment perceived by the parents, obtained by the question: Do you think the <adolescent> currently needs to go to the dentist? The data was assessed using Stata 12.0. Descriptive analyzes were performed using relative and absolute frequencies, chisquare or Fischer Exact tests and, finally, crude and adjusted Poisson regression analysis. For all analyzes, a significance level of 5% was considered. The results showed that the need for dental appointment by the adolescent was perceived by 72.4% of parents. After adjusting the analysis, the outcome remained positively associated with the history of dental pain (p <0.001), self-rated oral health of the adolescent as regular or bad (p <0.001), the presence of dental caries (p <0.001) and defined malocclusion and severe (p = 0.011). In conclusion, regardless of the sociodemographic and economic condition, the parents' perception of the need for dental appointment by their adolescent children is related to the oral health situation, revealing the curative and non-preventive character of the parents' perception. The findings of this study may contribute to the improvement of public oral health policies in adolescence by elucidating the factors associated with parents’ perception of the need for consultation.