Access and use of secondary dental care of a large city of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil

Resumo

The Brazilian Dental Specialty Centers (CEOs) were
created due to a limitation of Brazilian public dental care. In 2004,
the specialized services corresponded to no more than 3.5% of
total dental clinical procedures. These services are a reference for
oral health teams in primary care in order to perform additional
procedures at this level of attention. Despite the expansion of
specialized procedures, the resolution of these services is subject
to discussion between managers and researchers. Objective: To
evaluate the access and use of the secondary dental care of a large
city. Material and methods: The descriptive retrospective longitudinal
study was conducted using CEO primary data from November
2012 to July 2013. These data were obtained from the Technical
Department of Oral Health and the coordination of services were
analyzed and then compared to the guidelines of Ordinance no.
#1.464/MS. Results: The performance of services was low, ranging
from 47.2 to 60.6% of the overall fulfillment of goals, in average. By
analyzing per subgroup, endodontics was the subgroup with lower
fulfillment (33.2%) and periodontics was that with the most fulfillment
(88.3%). Absenteeism on the first appointments, the average per
service ranged between 29.4 and 44.2%, and periodontics was the
most affected subgroup (51%). The percentage of finished treatment
ranged from 52.9 to 66.4%, and stomatology was the subgroup with
less number of finished treatments (19.2%). Conclusion: The study
revealed low utilization of the evaluated services associated with
high absenteeism. Further studies and management initiatives are
necessary to find ways to optimize secondary dental care integration
to primary care services.