Impacto familiar, qualidade de vida e saúde bucal em crianças de 8 a 10 anos de idade de lagarto, Sergipe, Brasil.

Abstract

Oral diseases, such as tooth decay, periodontal disease, and dental trauma, are considered public health problems in Brazil and worldwide. The family impacts caused by these conditions can place a burden on those responsible for children's daily routines, such as missing work and having their sleep interrupted. Therefore, the objective of this study is to evaluate the family and quality-of-life impact of oral health problems on children aged 8 to 10 enrolled in public and private schools in the municipality of Lagarto, Sergipe, Brazil. This is an observational, cross-sectional study. The ideal sample size for the study is 346 children and was obtained using Epi-info software, in the STATCALC module, version 7.0. The socioeconomic and demographic characteristics of the sample were collected through a questionnaire administered to the children's legal guardians. The Brazilian version of the Family Impact Scale (FIS) was administered to guardians, and the reduced version of the Child Perceptions Questionnaire (CPQ) was administered to children. A descriptive analysis of the data was performed, along with the Mann-Whitney test. The final sample consisted of 330 children, 176 (53.3%) of whom were female, with a mean age of 8.92 years. The prevalence of caries and gingival bleeding was 66.1% and 78.5%, respectively. The need for restorative treatment was present in 32.4% and urgent treatment in 22.7% of the students. Caries experience led to a significantly higher score in the oral symptoms domain of the quality of life questionnaire (p = 0.034) and gingival bleeding in the social well-being domain (p = 0.008). Based on the results obtained, it was concluded that caries and gingival bleeding had a negative impact on quality of life. Furthermore, bleeding gums had a negative impact on the financial difficulty domain in the family.