Public Dental Service Access Policies for People with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil: A Pre-Evaluation Study

Ednaldo de Jesus-Filho, Sandra Garrido de Barros (), Maria Isabel Pereira Vianna and Maria Cristina Teixeira Cangussu
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Ednaldo de Jesus-Filho: Family Health Unit of Alto das Pombas, Municipal Health Department of Salvador, Salvador 40226-500, Brazil
Sandra Garrido de Barros: Department of Social and Pediatric Dentistry, Faculty of Dentistry, Federal University of Bahia, Salvador 40110-912, Brazil
Maria Isabel Pereira Vianna: Department of Social and Pediatric Dentistry, Faculty of Dentistry, Federal University of Bahia, Salvador 40110-912, Brazil
Maria Cristina Teixeira Cangussu: Department of Social and Pediatric Dentistry, Faculty of Dentistry, Federal University of Bahia, Salvador 40110-912, Brazil

IJERPH, 2024, vol. 21, issue 5, 1-22

Abstract: This study sought to carry out a systematic and preliminary evaluation of the policies on access to public dental services for people with ASD in a Brazilian city. The study, conducted between November/2019 and February/2020, was developed through document analysis, the design of the theoretical logical model of the policies, and seven semi-structured interviews with key informants. The sample was intentionally selected. We also considered the answers to 108 questionnaires from a pilot study on the access of people with ASD to dental services applied to caregivers, dentists, and non-dental professionals. No refusals were recorded. The availability study showed that the policies’ objectives were not being achieved in terms of care network organization: there were no institutional flows, personal contacts were used between professionals to guarantee access to secondary attention, there was no specific training for the dentists about ASD, and the oral health care network was unknown to non-dentist professionals and caregivers. Most people with ASD have visited the dentist at least once in their lives, but a large percentage of those within this study did not do so in the last year. This study identified difficulties in implementing policies and suggested possible strategies for overcoming them as dimensions and subdimensions for evaluation.

Keywords: autism spectrum disorder; dental health services; public health administration; evaluation study; health services accessibility (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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