CARDS odontológicos: uma alternativa no processo de educação de mães no período pós-natal destinado à saúde bucal de seus filhos

Abstract

Introduction: Virtual environments are an effective tool to facilitate communication, therefore, investigate the usage of these resources in the process of promoting health is important to improve the quality of life of mothers and children. Aim: To evaluate the educational level of mothers in the postnatal phase, related to the oral health of their babies and propose an alternative tool to reinforce the process of oral health education. Material and methods: This study is a descriptive and quali-quantitative analysis, carried out at Maternity Hospital Januário Cicco. Postnatal mothers were selected to be submitted to a semi-structured interview directed to the baby's needs, such as oral hygiene, non-nutritive sucking, breastfeeding and food introduction habits. In the assessment of the degrees of knowledge for the four aspects explored, a classification was stablish based on scores, using the following degrees: “Satisfactory” (4 scores), “Good” (3 scores), “Bad” (2 scores), and “Unsatisfactory” (1 or 0 score). The collected data was organized at the SPSS program (version 20.0), descriptive analyzes and measures of central tendencies were performed. To perform the corrections of the questionnaire, bibliographic searches were made in the databases Scielo, Lilacs and MedLine, which were also useful to create an educational tool based on the questions addressed in the interview, adapting to the level of knowledge of mothers. Results: After the evaluation of the answers, all mothers presented a "Bad" knowledge (score 2) in all aspects, when analyzed separately. Consequently, in a full analysis, they also reflected the same degree of knowledge when it comes to general baby care. Thus, the Cards Odontológicos were created, involving illustrations and brief guidelines in order to reinforce the instruction of the evaluated audience, with the help of social media for its propagation. Conclusions: The lack of knowledge showed by the mothers appears to come from poor dental guidance during prenatal care. From this perspective, it is possible to consider the proposition of Cards Odontológicos as an alternative tool in the education of these mothers regarding the oral health of their babies, facilitating the contact between professional/student and patients, and encouraging healthy habits of the mother-child pair that can accompany them for a lifetime.