Peruvian Children's Access to Oral Health Information during the COVID- 19 Pandemic

Abstract

Aim: The aim of this study was to determine the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on access to oral health information of Peruvian children.

Materials and methods: The Demographic and Family Health Survey generates annually a national database of Peruvian children between 0 and 11 years old, which is collected through direct interviews applied in the homes of residents of the country. A cross-sectional study was applied with this information collected during 2019 and 2020, with a final sample of 39 124 subjects, 15 974 from the year 2019 (62.03%) and 7088 from the year 2020 (55.54%). The dependent variable was access to oral health information and the independent variable was year; in addition, there were considered sociodemographic and geographical covariates. Finally, there were executed descriptive, bivariate, and multivariate analyses.

Results: Access to oral health information was 59.85% (n = 23 062). For the bivariate analysis, the dependent variable showed association with year, natural region, sex, altitude, health insurance coverage, area, place of residence and wealth index. During multivariate analysis, year manifested a negative association with access to oral health information (aPR: 0.89; 95%CI: 0.85-0.92; P < 0.001), adjusted for co-variables that previously manifested association.

Conclusion: Access to oral health information for Peruvian children had a negative impact during 2020, in which COVID-19 pandemic occurred.

Keywords: COVID-19; Child; Peru; dental; health education; health services accessibility.