Ansiedade odontológica e qualidade de vida em gestantes: existe relação com a qualidade de vida relacionada à saúde bucal?

Abstract

Introduction: Improving maternal health includes ensuring a set of conditions for pregnant women. Among them, we highlight ensuring oral health. It is known that pregnant women experience changes in their health status, in addition to physiological changes in their oral cavity, which can lead to systemic implications, such as risk to the fetus. The poorer oral health conditions lead to a worse perception of the quality of life of this pregnant woman. The oral health related quality of life can also be significantly influenced by dental anxiety, mainly due to the great absenteeism of pregnant women over the consult. Objective: This study aimed to compare health related quality of life (HRQoL) and oral health related quality of life (OHRQoL) according to the level of dental anxiety from pregnant women in prenatal care. Materials and methods: The sample consisted of 326 pregnant women in prenatal care at a university hospital. The participants, literate and over 18, answered a sociodemographic questionnaire, the OHIP-14, the Dental Anxiety Scale and the WHOQOL-BREF. We compared the medians from the scores of WHOQOL-BREF and OHIP-14 domains according to the level of anxiety from pregnant women (Mann Whitney). Correlations between the questionnaires domains analyzed were obtained by Pearson Coefficient. Results: Great part of pregnant women interviewed (52%) showed moderate or high anxiety regarding dental care. Pregnant women with moderate/high anxiety presented a poorer perception of OHRQoL (p <0.05). The scores from health related quality of life of pregnant women differed according to the level of dental anxiety in the physical, psychological and environmental domains (p <0.05). The physical domain on HRQoL was associated to OHRQoL, mainly to physical pain (p<0,001;r=0,30), psychological disability (p<0,001;r=0,30) and social disability (p<0,001;r=0,30). Conclusion: Pregnant women with higher levels of anxiety had a poorer perception of OHRQoL and HRQoL. The physical domain on HRQoL was associated with physical pain and psychosocial disability on OHRQoL in pregnant women. The knowledge of anxiety and HRQoL from pregnant women makes it possible for health professionals to create strategies and develop health promotion activities to provide integral care to this population.