Indicadores de saúde bucal da atenção básica no Estado do Ceará : uma análise crítica

Abstract

Monitoring and evaluation of health services are indispensable steps in the process of implementation of health policies. Trustworthy health information is relevant to subsidize the planning and the decision-making. Family’s Health Strategy, understood as the primary access mechanism of the users to health actions, provides data related to the implementation of activities within its scope through the information systems. This study aimed to analyze the Oral Health Indicators of the Primary Attention Pact within the State of Ceará, checking the percentage of the population assisted by the Family’s Health Strategy and Oral Health Program, the presentation of Oral Health Indicators in the historical series proposed and how the information, which generates indicators, is provided by the professionals in charge. This work consisted of two stages. In stage 1 it was compiled data on the population’s coverage of the actions of the Family’s Health Strategy and Oral Health Program and the Oral Health Indicators of the Primary Care recommended by the Ministry of Health within the State of Ceará. It was used information concerning the historical series between the years 2001 and 2007, when the Ministry of Health began to fund cities, as an incentive for inserting dentist surgeons in the Family’s Health teams in Brazil. These data were obtained through the website of the Ministry of Health and complemented by the Oral Health Care Department of the Secretary of Health of the State of Ceará. They were arranged in Excel charts and it was considered statistically significant the differential analyses whose p-value was less than 0.05. The data were processed in the program so-called SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences). In stage 2, it was used an instrument (questionnaire) applied to dentist surgeons who participate in the Family’s Health Strategy in Ceará, where they were asked about their knowledge about the Oral Health Indicators and how they used to inform the Oral Health actions that they carried out daily in the Basic Units of Health Family and some other social spaces where they worked in. The stage 1 data were analyzed using linear regression and association between variables. It was verified that there was percentage growth of population’s coverage of the historical series of the Family’s Health Teams and Oral Health was statistically relevant. There was no statistically significant improvement in the Oral Health indicators, giving evidence of the stagnation of the members during the historical series. It was noticed that there are misunderstandings about the interpretation of the indicators and in the registry of the data related to the Oral Health actions by dentist surgeons operating in the Family’s Health Strategy and orientation of Ministry of Health, with the necessity of implementation of measures of permanent training to clarify aspects concerning the Oral Health Indicators.