Family risk as adjunct for organizing the demand for oral health service in the Family Health Strategy

Abstract

Introduction One of the main problems of the public health services, in which the family oral health team is included, is access by users to dental treatment in primary care, with particular reference to caries disease. Objective The aim of this study was to evaluate the relationship between family risk, for prioritization of home visits and oral health conditions, with a view to providing evidence about the first indicator for organizing the demand for oral health in the Family Health Strategy (FHS). Method The application of family health is based on Form A of the primary care information database SIAB ("Sistema de Informação de Atenção Básica"), used for registering families with the FHS. Eleven dentists examined the oral health conditions of 1165 persons (608 from 12 to 19 years; and 557 from 35 to 44 years of age), classifying them into six codes from A to F. Multinomial logistic regression was used (α=0.05) to analyze the association between family risk variables and oral health situation. Result There was significant association between family risk and presence of caries disease with treatment needs (OR: 2.08, p<0.0001). Conclusion Persons who have family risk would have twice as much chance of presenting caries disease in comparison with those without risk, corroborating the relevance of this element in organizing the demand for oral health.