Odontologia preventiva na primeira infância: uma alternativa para se evitar o medo e a ansiedade relacionados ao tratamento odontológico

Abstract

Despite the scientific and technological advancement, the fear and the anxiety related to the dental treatment still represent a barrier to the services of oral health, constituting a problem for the promotion of it, which favors the ineffectiveness of results in this area. The aim of this paper is to seek enough knowledge about Preventive Dentistry in early childhood for it to be applied in the context of primary health care as an alternative to avoid or at least lessen the traumatic and more complex treatments and thus eliminate the fear and anxiety related to dental treatment. Information was obtained through literature review of articles relevant to the subject in the following databases: Virtual Health Library (BVSMS), Collection of Scientific Journals and Articles (SCIELO), Latin American and Caribbean Health Sciences Literature (LILACS), Google Scholar, national literature journals and specialized books. The following key words were used on this research: "Preventive Dentistry", "Fear" and Dental Anxiety". We selected national and international studies on the subject of this work published between 1988 and 2011 and 66 stood out because of its extreme importance in relation to the chosen subject. After analysis of these articles could be seen that anxiety and fear related to dental care are associated with a history of traumatic care often occurred in childhood. The fear of dental treatment generates a cyclical problem. When the preventive treatment does not occur because of fear, dental pathology assumes proportions that require curative or emergency treatments. These treatments generally are invasive and therefore uncomfortable, as a result the fear and the avoidance of dental care greatly increase, establishing thereby the cycle. Expressions of fear or anxiety in children can be eased by prophylactic procedures that must be used in routine dental visits in order to enlarge their perceptual field in relation to dental treatment. It was concluded that oral health promotion in early childhood through good communication and closeness between professionals and users, as well as routine dental visits and educative and preventive procedures can reduce the incidence of oral diseases by avoiding or minimizing the occurrence of invasive and painful medical conditions, thereby reducing anxiety during dental treatment, favoring the breaking of the cycle: fear of dental treatment - escape from the dental visits - low oral health.