Socioeconomic profile of users and reasons why they seek dental care in teaching clinics
Keywords:
socioeconomic factors, oral health, dental care for children.Abstract
Introduction: educational institutions are in charge of training qualified professional personnel who must be prepared to act in society.
Objective: describe the socioeconomic profile of dental clinic users and identify the reasons why they make use of the service.
Methods: a cross-sectional quantitative study was conducted of clinical cariology records from a higher education institution. 313 records were analyzed in the years 2011-2013. The data collected were sociodemographic variables (age, sex, family income, parents' schooling level) and reasons why they seek care. Data were treated descriptively and subjected to chi-square statistical tests, where 5 % was considered significant.
Results: users' mean age was 6 ± 7.81 years with an even distribution between the sexes: female 50.2 % and male 49.8 %. Most parents had attended school for more than eight years: fathers 67.35 % and mothers 70.43 %. Around 37.75 % of the fathers and 43.9 % of the mothers with more than eight years of schooling go to the clinic for treatment, whereas 29.6 % of the fathers and 26.53 % of the mothers seek preventive care. The relationship found between education and reasons why parents seek care was p= 0.01. As to family income, 49.9 % reported that the family did not receive any, 39.8 % receive minimum wages and 10.4 % get more than one paycheck. Among no-income families, 37 % attend the service in search of treatment and 12.7 % seek preventive care.
Conclusion: the population seeking care at the clinic was the most vulnerable socioeconomically and the reason for attending consultation was treatment.
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