Serviços de saúde bucal na atenção primária à saúde: uma reflexão sobre o que é preciso mudar

Abstract

The inclusion of oral health teams in the Family Health Strategy (FHS) was established in 2000, through Ordinance nº 1,444 of the Ministry of Health. The theoretical framework for oral health in Brazil was the National Oral Health Policy (NOHP), created in 2003 and renewed through the Brasil Sorridente Program. After almost two decades of inclusion of Dentistry in Primary Health Care (PHC), we observed that dental practice remains fragmented, with an almost exclusive focus on therapeutic practice, in which the other professionals on the team do not fully recognize dentistry as an integral part of the health services. With the aim of investigating users' opinions about the oral health services offered in PHC, the present work is a cross-sectional study with prospective data collection, with a quantitative-qualitative approach, which uses a structured instrument based on the PCATool oral health adult patient version applied to a sample of 142 users who use dental services at PHC in Caldas Novas (GO). As a result, the service received an essential score of 5.10 and an overall score of 4.75. Therefore, the attributes that performed best were cultural competence and first contact-use access. On the other hand, the attributes with the worst performance were community orientation, family orientation and first contact access-accessibility. Therefore, the results of this research should help municipal managers and dental surgeons in improving access and quality of services offered. It is concluded that the evaluation of health services plays a crucial role in improving the quality of actions and assistance offered, resulting in the production of three technical products: an extension course in scientific methodology with an emphasis on data collection, a technical conclusive report and a carousel of posts to be used in the social media disclosure report. These materials will be shared with municipal managers and dental surgeons with the aim of improving access and quality of dental services available.