Autopercepção e condições de saúde bucal em gestantes

This study ev aluated oral health indic ators by determining the pr evalence of dental c aries, periodontal diseases, prosthetic conditions and need in pr egnant women; identifi ed self-perceived oral health status and evaluated association bet ween variables. A clinical examination was performed in fi fty pregnant women assisted in the Preventive Dentistry Clinic-FOAr-UNESP using traditional oral health indicators: DMFT, C ommunity Periodontal Index ( CPI) and pr osthetic c onditions. A semi-struc tured questionnair e was applied to identify oral health perception and to collect sociodemographic variables. For data analysis, pregnant women were allocated in three groups according to their oral health perception (good, fair, poor) and compared according to clinical variables by the Kruskal-Wallis and Dunn tests. DMFT was high, all of them showed periodontal changes, most do not use and do not r equire any type of prosthesis; 36% considered their oral appearance as good. There was signifi cant diff erence between groups for the DMFT index and prosthetic need. It may be concluded that despite dental caries experience of pregnant women was found to be high, the prosthetic need have been detected in most of them and the presence of calculus was observed in all the volunteers, the majority considered their oral health status satisfactory.