Accessibility to Specialized Public Oral Health Services from the Perspective of Brazilian Users

• Published in: International journal of environmental research and public health Vol. 13; no. 10; p. 1026
• Main Authors: de Castro, Ricardo Dias, Rangel, Marianne de Lucena, da Silva, Marcos André Azevedo, de Lucena, Brunna Thaís Lucwu, Cavalcanti, Alessandro Leite, Bonan, Paulo Rogério Ferreti, Oliveira, Julyana de Araújo
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI 19-10-2016
• Subjects: Adult; Brazil; Cities; Cross-Sectional Studies; Dental Health Services; Female; Health Services Accessibility; Humans; Male; Middle Aged; Oral Health; Pilot Projects; Specialization; Surveys and Questionnaires; dental health services; health policy; health services evaluation
• ISSN: 1660-4601; 1661-7827; 1660-4601
• DOI: 10.3390/ijerph13101026

The Specialized Dental Clinics (SDCs) represent the first government initiative in Latin America aimed at providing specialized oral health services. This study sought to evaluate the organizational accessibility to specialized oral health care services in Brazil and to understand the factors that may be associated with accessibility from the user's perspective. This epidemiological, cross-sectional and quantitative study was conducted by means of interviews with individuals who sought specialized public oral health services in the city of João Pessoa, Paraíba, Brazil, and consisted of a sample of 590 individuals. Users expressed a favorable view of the classification and resolutive nature of specialized services offered by Brazilian public health. The binary logistic regression analysis revealed weak points highlighting the difficulty involved in obtaining such treatments leading to unfavorable evaluations. In the resolutive nature item, difficulty in accessing the location, queues and lack of materials and equipment were highlighted as statistically significant unfavorable aspects. While many of the users considered the service to be resolutive, weaknesses were mentioned that need to be detected to promote improvements and to prevent other health models adopted worldwide from reproducing the same flaws.