Abstract

LOPEZ SOTO, Olga Patricia  and  JOYA RODRIGUEZ, Luz Dary. PREVENTIVE ORAL BEHAVIOR, ATTITUDES, PERCEPTIONS AND ORAL HEALTH STATUS IN DIABETIC PATIENTS. Hacia promoc. Salud [online]. 2009, vol.14, n.2, pp.13-23. ISSN 0121-7577.

Objective: Characterize preventive oral behavior, attitudes, and perceptions, and the oral health stateof a group of diabetic patients in comparison with a control group. Materials and method: A cross-sectional study of a population of 146 patients in each group. A questionnaire based on Moore et al. was applied to determine oral health behavior. Attitudes taken into consideration were: personal oral health perception, Corah anxiety scale and reasons for not visiting the dentist. The oral health state was determined by means of epidemiological plaque and gingival index, and the DMF index [decayed (D), missing (M) and filled (F) teeth]. Results: The average of glycemia found in the diabetic group was 192 mg/dl. There was a lower proportion of diabetic patients who visited the dentist for control and prophylaxis (p<0.05). 39.7% of diabetics commented that their dentist did not know about their diabetes. The averages of dental plaque index and gingival index were higher in the diabetic group (p < 0.05), similar to those averages of DMF index (p < 0.05). Conclusions: Preventive oral behavior, attitudes and perceptions and the oral health state in diabetic patients were different compared to the control group, some of them statistically significant.

Keywords : Diabetes Mellitus; knowledge; attitudes; health practices.

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