Conocimientos, actitudes y prácticas sobre salud bucal antes y después de una intervención educativa en población rural de Rionegro, Santander

Abstract

Introduction: In Colombia, exposure to risk factors is bigger in men and women who live in the countryside, where the infrastructure and proximity to health services has a low presence also sociocultural conditions make them more susceptible to have adverse health events. Cavities and support tissue problems are frequent pathologies that appear at an early age and have been shown to be prevented by adopting good oral hygiene habits. Objective: To determine the knowledge, attitudes, and practices in oral health before and after of an intervention in the rural population of Rionegro in the period between October 2019 and February 2020. Materials and Methods: Quasi-experimental trial before and after of an educational intervention in a rural population. The population consisted of 296 people over 18 years old residents in Llano de Palmas population center. The sample size of the participants in the study was defined in 70 people, using the Epidata statistical program with a confidence level of 95 %, an accuracy of 5 % and an expected proportion of better results in knowledge, attitudes and average practices among the 96.56 % reported by Nadhini and collaborators (25) and the 92,7 % referred by Hidalgo y Diaz (44). The sampling was non-probabilistic for convenience. At the end, the sample consisted of 53 people who met the inclusion criteria. A questionnaire of knowledge, attitudes and practices (CAP), with 25 questions was applied to obtain the data of the study. The questions that explore the practices and knowledge were taken from the questionnaire applied in the Fourth National Study of Oral Health ENSAB IV. Results: The surveyed people have shown an average age of 37 years old with a standard deviation of ± 14 and the most prevalent gender was male with 56.60 %. Married marital status prevails with 37.74 %, the most common occupation was mechanic, stylist or company employee with 32.08 %. The most common level of education was high school with 49.06 %. In relation to information gathered it was evident that there are improvements of 54.7 %, which guarantees that the population complies with oral health programs. As for the question about what causes cavities?, 64 % before the intervention answered that poor hygiene should be an issue as well as not brushing properly; after the intervention, 84.9 % responded positively. Stated that mouth problems affect general health, increasing in the aftermath to 71.7 %; for the practices, the initial percentage of using brush, cream, dental floss and mouthwash was 47.1 % after the intervention it increased to 50.9 %. Conclusions: We were able to characterize the population of the study with an average age of 37 years old, the most prevalent gender as male and the most prevalent marital status as married. It also shown that the most common source of income are the informal Jobs such as mechanic and stylist. The CAP analysis after the educational intervention revealed positive changes in the population, however there were permanent data before and after the intervention that indicates the need of reinforcing the oral health promotion program with new strategies, so we can achieve the proposed objective.