Accessibility of Disabled Children and Adolescents to Basic Oral Health Attention at the Public Health system - A Pilot Study

Objective: To verify the reliability and reproducibility of the research instrument and to evaluate the access of disabled children and adolescents to the public oral health service. Method: Sixty-seven parents/caregivers of children and adolescents with physical, mental, auditory or visual disabilities enrolled at the Family Health Program of the city of Recife participated in this study. A quantitative descriptive observational study design was used. For such purpose, a form was applied to the participants to identify and characterize the population as well as to retrieve data referring to access to public oral health service. Data were analyzed by descriptive statistics. Results: The percentage of agreement for each question ranged from 69.0% to 94.1% and the Kappa values ranged from 0.44 to 0.88. The majority of the parents/caregivers had low education level and income. As much as 50.7% of them had sought treatment for their children at the Family Health Program Unit but only 50% of them actually received treatment. The main reasons for not receiving treatment were the unavailability of vacancies and lack of preparation of the professionals to treat special needs patients. Great part of those that did not seek treatment for their children at the Family Health Program Unit preferred to take them to another public service, while a considerable part of the studied population did not find necessary to seek treatment. Conclusion: The reliability and reproducibility of the research instrument were satisfactory. Half of the individuals that had thought the Family Health Program Unit's oral health service for their children affirmed not to have received treatment, and mentioned the lack of vacancies as the main reason.