Profile of Patients with Special Needs Assisted at a Brazilian University

Abstract

Objective: To characterize the profile of patients with special needs assisted at a Dentistry School of a Brazilian University. Material and Methods: A retrospective and descriptive study was carried out through the analysis of 329 dental records from individuals with special needs assisted at the Dentistry for Special Needs Patients discipline between 2012 and 2017. Data on gender, age, race, monthly family income, schooling, medical diagnosis of the disabling condition, drug used and type of dental procedures performed were reviewed. Data were analyzed by descriptive and inferential statistics (Shapiro-Wilk and t-student tests) with 5% significance level. Results: There was higher prevalence of females (50.5%) aged 45-54 years (18.7%), low schooling (36.2%) and monthly income of 1 minimum wage (61.9%). Most special needs were chronic systemic diseases (67.2%) and endocrine-metabolic diseases (16.7%). Among patients investigated, 66.3% used anti-hypertensive (38.3%) and anti-inflammatory (20.6%) drugs. Of dental procedures performed, curative procedures were the most prevalent in the majority of patients (90.6%). Conclusion: The profile of most patients with special needs was characterized by females with chronic systemic diseases and mean age of 39.6 years, low schooling and monthly family income of up to 1 minimum wage, whose main reason for the visit was the search for curative dental treatment.

Dental care for patients with special needs at a private higher education institute

“…Of the dental schools offering the discipline of special needs patients in Brazil, 27 (48.21%) provide it at both theoretical and practical levels, 25 (44.64%) at a theoretical level and four (7.14%) at a practical level only [8,17].…”

“…In the field of health care, disabled patients are mainly assisted by the public healthcare system and higher education institutions. Therefore, both account for collecting, organising, analysing and interpreting data on the current reality, as well as for discussing the services provided by the higher education and healthcare organisations, including qualification discipline not available in the undergraduate curricula [17]. I n t h i s w a y , o n e c a n o b s e r v e t h a t undergraduate dental discipline should become adequate and make changes in their curriculum in order to allow professionals to be able to meet the healthcare needs of the population and public healthcare system.…”

Análise do perfil dos pacientes com deficiência internados no Instituto de Saúde da Criança do Amazonas

“…Neste estudo, a maioria dos pacientes foi do gênero masculino, corroborando com a maioria dos estudos já publicados na literatura tanto no Brasil quanto no exterior [12][13][14][15][16] , embora seja divergente do estudo de Kohata et al 17 , o qual revelou ter o sexo feminino como mais prevalente.…”

“…A patologia base mais prevalente neste estudo foram as doenças neurológicas (deficiência mental, paralisia cerebral ou anomalias congênitas associadas a deficiência mental), concordando com os achados de Previtali et al 14 , Santos et al 21 , Gondim et al 22 , Bizarra et al 23 , diferindo de outros trabalhos como Kohata et al 17 , Silva et al 19 e Mohamed Rohani et al 24 , que revelam que a maioria foi de distúrbios comportamentais, sistêmicos ou genéticos.…”