Objectives: To assess clinical, behavioral and socioeconomic factors associated with nonuse of dental services by schoolchildren.
Methods: A cross-sectional school-based study with 1211 children aged 8-12 years was carried out in Pelotas, Brazil. The outcome (never having had a dental appointment) and independent variables were collected through interview with parents and children, including sex, age, parent's schooling, family income, self-perception about oral health, and dental fear. Dental caries was assessed by clinical examination performed at schools.
Results: 291 (24.3 %; 95 % CI 22.0-26.9) of the children had never visited a dentist. Multivariate Poisson regression analysis showed that the outcome was associated with children from mothers with little education (≤0.001), from public schools (≤0.001), from crowded households (≤0.001), who had no caries (≤0.001), who had dental fear (≤0.001), and who started oral hygiene later (0.04).
Conclusions: Despite the extensive increase in oral health coverage, especially in the public system in the last years in Brazil, there is still an unassisted portion of the population of schoolchildren. It was observed that socioeconomic, behavioral, and clinical factors influenced the nonuse of dental services.