Strategies for promoting oral health in patients and specialists at teaching dental clinic “Cesar Escalante”

Abstract

The oral health component is still a main aspect in the population life conditions and welfare, requiring the consolidation of a corpus of theoretic and methodological knowledge allowing to affront it from its two dimensions: social and biologic, to substitute the aims based in the disease , for aims based in health, developing an odontological practice with a sense of totality. This investigation consists in proposing strategies contributing to oral health promotion among patients and specialists of the Teaching Dental Clinic "Cesar Escalante". We used the analytical-synthetic and inductive-deductive methods:, with the purpose of analyzing the main aspects of the oral health promotion. The historic-logical method was used to study the development of the current tendencies of oral health promotion at the level of Doctor´s Office Nr. 1 of the Teaching Dental Clinic "Cesar Escalante". The universe was formed by 66 12-to-14-year-old children, 9 pregnant women and 10 specialists. The oral health status of the patients became significantly better after the learning process. The evaluation of the implemented strategies was positive. The mediators expressed that there was a change in patients’ behavior with respect to health care and, in relation with the hygienic habits, there was an increase of the brush usage and a substantial improvement of the brushing quality.