Resumo

MORAES, Avany Berman de; SANTOS, Manuelly Pereira de Morais; JAMELLI, Silvia Regina  e  VASCONCELOS, Maria Gorete Lucena de. Grandparents' attention to their grandchildren's oral health in an early dental care program. Odontol. Clín.-Cient. (Online) [online]. 2013, vol.12, n.3, pp. 195-201. ISSN 1677-3888.

Aim: Identify meanings attributed by grandparents' attention to their grandchildren's dental health care through clinical examination in an Early Dental Care Program. Methods: descriptive, exploratory and qualitative study with nine children accompanied by their grandparents at the Areias General Hospital participated in the "Growing up without caries" Program. It was held interviews and clinical examinations to detect caries lesions and presence of visible plaque and white spots, through caries indices ceo-d and ceo-d modified. We used content analysis of the interviews, in thematic. Results: grandparents belonged to the age group 38-77 years. The grandchildren were aged between 21 and 36 months. Two of them showed no carious lesions, however, they had white spots and seven of them showed a high caries index. Four themes emerged from the speech: 1. The meaning of care in relation to oral health, 2. Grandparents: mothers with sugar, 3. The experience of tooth loss in the past and 4. The intergenerational conflict interfering with oral health. Conclusions: as caregivers of their grandchildren in the family becomes important to question the attitudes and behaviors in the control and prevention of childhood caries. Attentive to the fact that the consumption of sugar as a transfer of love and care from grandparents to grandchildren, although detrimental to oral health, as evidenced by clinical examination.

Palavras-chave : Oral health; Dental caries; Family relations; Child care; Qualitative research..