Avaliação das ações e serviços de saúde bucal na atenção primária ofertada às crianças na primeira infância em um estado do sudeste brasileiro

Abstract

The last epidemiological survey on Oral Health (SB-Brazil Project 2010) showed an unequal distribution and high prevalence of caries disease in the Brazilian population of children at 5 years old. Since, the creation of SUS, the offer of health actions and services has the objective of being employed according to the principles of SUS: Universality, Integrality, and Equity, implemented by Law 8.080/90. The offer of comprehensive care is directed to meet the physical, mental, and social aspects of the individual. Thus, it is fundamental that PHC offers a diversity of care, including oral health care. Comprehensive care for preschool children is essential, thus dental care contributes to the prevention of oral diseases, especially caries, and consequently in the maintenance of teeth that directly influence the growth and craniofacial development, occlusion, chewing, and phono-articulatory function. Therefore, the present study aimed to evaluate the quality of dental actions and services in PHC for children aged 0 to 5 years in the state of Minas Gerais. This is a cross-sectional, descriptive, and analytical study, whose data collection was performed using the instrument PCATool professional version. In all, from the 853 municipalities of Minas Gerais, 196 municipalities participated in the study represented by the oral health coordinator. The descriptive analysis of the data showed that 86.2% of the municipalities have the essential and derived attributes for PHC, presenting the quality of actions and services in oral health for children up to 5 years. The attribute first contact access, access, and accessibility showed a lower percentage, only 17.8% of the municipalities showed results above the cut-off score established by the PCATool instrument. The results of this study were correlated to the IMRS and showed no relationship. Despite the large territorial extension of the state of Minas Gerais, the distribution of the quality of oral health actions and services was similar for the 13 geographic regions. The justifications for these results may be linked to the financial incentive offered by the government of Minas Gerais that acts to expand primary care, especially in municipalities that present greater social vulnerability. The results found show a significant lack of access to services, which may influence, besides other factors such as perception of oral health, the high prevalence of caries in children. However, this study shows that when children have access to oral health services, these have a satisfactory conditions regarding the structure and process of services able to ensure the prevention of diseases and recovery of health. Studies like this are necessary since they allow the creation of actions and strategies to improve the quality of the services offered