Programas preventivos en salud dentaluna revisión crítica

Abstract

Dental decay and periodontal disease constitute an important problem of public health that effects a great number of inhabitants of the developed countries. Due to the bad consequences of both diseases, there have been promoted different preventive procedures in order to establish a suitable dental health. In the review of the procedures used for the promotion of dental hygiene seems to justify the difference between the traditional programmes of dental health education based on transmission of information on oral health and the programmes that use procedures ground on the principles of analysis and behaviour modification. In this article, 30 informative and behavioural studies targeted to dental health promotion are review. It is a description of the most representative studies that have also undertaken the evaluation of the obtained results. However, the absence of methodological requirements that show some of the studies is pointed out. The results show that the traditional educative programmes lack methodological accuracy. They also show that there is no evidence that they are successful in setting efficient and lasting dental hygiene habits. On the order side, the behavioural programmes, undertaken in better methodological conditions, often in general, more satisfactory results.