Resumo

JEREMIAS, Fabiano et al. Self-perception and oral health status in pregnant women. Odontol. Clín.-Cient. (Online) [online]. 2010, vol.9, n.4, pp. 359-363. ISSN 1677-3888.

This study evaluated oral health indicators by determining the prevalence of dental caries, periodontal diseases, prosthetic conditions and need in pregnant women; identified self-perceived oral health status and evaluated association between variables. A clinical examination was performed in fifty pregnant women assisted in the Preventive Dentistry Clinic-FOAr-UNESP using traditional oral health indicators: DMFT, Community Periodontal Index (CPI) and prosthetic conditions. A semi-structured questionnaire 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 require any type of prosthesis; 36% considered their oral appearance as good. There was significant difference 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.

Palavras-chave : self-perception; oral health; pregnant women.