Necesidad de tratamiento periodontal e higiene oral en pacientes Garantías Explícitas en Salud de 60 años de Punta Arenas

Objective

To determine the need for periodontal treatment and oral hygiene in sixty- year-old adults belonging to the GES (Explicit Health Guarantees) program in Punta Arenas.

Material and methods

A cross-sectional observational study was conducted in which 153 sixty-year-old GES patients were selected from municipal health centres in Punta Arenas, Magallanes and Chilean Antarctica. A simple random sample was used to select participants from each establishment. Patients were evaluated by a previously calibrated examiner (K = 0.84) through a visual clinical examination to determine the need for periodontal treatment through the Periodontal Screening and Recording (PSR), and the level of Oral Hygiene (O’Leary). Data were transferred to a Microsoft Excel worksheet and statistically analysed.

Results

All of the older adults needed periodontal treatment. Almost all (98.69%) of patients showed deficient oral hygiene.

Conclusion

All the 60-year-old GES patients in Punta Arenas have a need for periodontal treatment; all of them demonstrated extremely low indexes of oral hygiene, thus showing that this population does not have favourable oral health.