Oral Care during Pregnancy: Attitudes of Brazilian Public Health Professionals

Renata Toledo Alves, Rosangela Almeida Ribeiro, Luciane Rezende Costa, Claudio Rodrigues Leles, Maria do Carmo Matias Freire and Saul Martins Paiva
Additional contact information
Renata Toledo Alves: Estacio de Sa College, Avenida Presidente Joao Goulart, 600, Cruzeiro do Sul, Juiz de Fora, MG 30130-900, Brazil
Rosangela Almeida Ribeiro: Department of Social and Child Dentistry, Faculty of Dentistry, Federal University of Juiz de Fora, Rua José Lourenço Kelmer, Bairro São Pedro, Juiz de Fora, MG 36036-900, Brazil
Luciane Rezende Costa: Department of Preventive and Restorative Dentistry, Faculty of Dentistry, Federal University of Goias, Primeira Avenida, Setor Universitario, Goiania, GO 74605-220, Brazil
Claudio Rodrigues Leles: Department of Preventive and Restorative Dentistry, Faculty of Dentistry, Federal University of Goias, Primeira Avenida, Setor Universitario, Goiania, GO 74605-220, Brazil
Maria do Carmo Matias Freire: Department of Stomatological Sciences, Faculty of Dentistry, Federal University of Goias, Primeira Avenida, Setor Universitario, Goiania, GO 74605-220, Brazil
Saul Martins Paiva: Department of Pediatric Dentistry and Orthodontics, Faculty of Dentistry, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Avenida Antonio Carlos, 6627, Pampulha, Belo Horizonte, MG 31270-901, Brazil

IJERPH, 2012, vol. 9, issue 10, 1-11

Abstract: There is little information about health professionals’ behavior regarding oral health care during pregnancy. We evaluated attitudes of obstetricians/gynecologists, nurses, and dentists working at a public community service towards pregnant women’s oral health. Health professionals responded to a self-applied questionnaire. Cluster analysis identified two clusters of respondents; Chi-square, Student’s t test, and logistic regression were used to compare the two clusters in terms of the independent variables. Respondents were categorized into cluster 1 ‘less favorable’ (n = 159) and cluster 2 ‘more favorable’ (n = 124) attitudes. Professionals that had attended a residency or specialization program (OR = 2.08, 95% CI = 1.15–3.77, p = 0.016) and worked exclusively at the public service (OR = 2.15, 95% CI = 1.10–4.20, p = 0.025) presented more favorable attitudes. Obstetricians/gynecologists (OR = 0.22, 95% CI = 0.09–0.54, p = 0.001) and nurses (OR = 0.50, 95% CI = 0.29–0.86, p = 0.013) showed less favorable attitudes than dentists. Health care providers’ attitudes regarding pregnant women’s oral health were related to their occupation, qualification, and dedication to the public service.

Keywords: attitudes; health personnel; oral health; pregnancy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/9/10/3454/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/9/10/3454/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:9:y:2012:i:10:p:3454-3464:d:20400

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().