What we know about management and organisation of primary dental care in Brazil

Tatiana Pereira Santos; Antônio Thomaz Gonzaga Matta Machado; Mauro Henrique Nogueira Guimarães Abreu; Renata Castro Martins

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0215429

What we know about management and organisation of primary dental care in Brazil

PLoS One. 2019 Apr 18;14(4):e0215429. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0215429. eCollection 2019.

Authors

Tatiana Pereira Santos¹, Antônio Thomaz Gonzaga Matta Machado², Mauro Henrique Nogueira Guimarães Abreu³, Renata Castro Martins³

Affiliations

¹ Graduate Program in Dentistry, Faculty of Dentistry, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil.
² Department of Preventive and Social Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil.
³ Department of Community and Preventive Dentistry, Faculty of Dentistry, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil.

Abstract

This cross-sectional study evaluated the management and organisation of primary dental care in Brazil. For this purpose, data from the National Program for Improving Access and Quality of Primary Care (PMAQ-AB) were used. Dentists from 18,114 Oral Health Teams (OHTs) answered a structured questionnaire in 2014. The data were analyzed descriptively and by cluster analysis. Half the Brazilian OHTs (51.0%) undertake planning and programming of activities. The majority of OHTs (66.4%) conducted monitoring and analysis of indicators and oral health information. The majority of OHTs had performed some self-evaluation process in the last 6 months (67.5%) and utilised self-evaluation results for planning and programming actions (71.4%). The OHTs grouped in Cluster 1 demonstrated better management organisation, followed by the teams grouped in Cluster 2. In the Brazilian macro-regions, the more OHTs were grouped in Cluster 1 in the Southeast (87.5%), Northeast (85.4%) and South (82.7%) regions. The majority of OHTs have satisfactory management and organisation. However, some need improvement, mainly in planning and programming actions based on health indicators and self-evaluation. All Brazilian OHTs need to participate in PMAQ-AB and it is important to continue evaluating the data to improve oral health care.

Publication types

Clinical Trial
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Brazil
Cross-Sectional Studies
Delivery of Health Care*
Dental Care*
Dentists
Female
Humans
Male
Oral Health*
Primary Health Care*
Process Assessment, Health Care
Surveys and Questionnaires*

Grants and funding

This work was supported by Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior to TPS, Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico, Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de Minas Gerais, and Pró-Reitoria de Pesquisa, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.