Impact of Preventive Child Oral Health Programs in Primary Health Care.

Early Childhood Caries - ECC - is a highly prevalent and severe disease that affects children during their first years of life and, hence, requires early interventions and approaches, on an individual and collective basis. Early childhood is the ideal period to introduce good habits and begin an educational/preventive oral health program; however, family participation is utmost important, especially because the child's parents or responsible adults tend to pass improper knowledge on oral health care in this stage of life. Once prioritizing educational actions directed to this audience in primary health care is essential, Grupo Hospitalar Conceição's (Conceição Hospital Group - GHC) Community Health Service implemented, in its 12 Basic Health Units (UBS), an oral health action program with the goal that all children born after 2010 have at least one dental appointment in their first, second and third year of life. In these appointments, the child's oral health conditions are evaluated and their mother/father or responsible adult receive guidance on proper oral health care; however, little is known on the effectiveness of these preventive programs and what is their impact on ECC reduction in the population. With the purpose of qualifying oral health care strategies at the Brazilian Unified Health System's Primary Health Care (APS-SUS), with a scientific background, it is necessary to assess the effectiveness of these programmatic actions in comparison with conventional dental care by free demand. In light of this, this study has a technological innovation character, with a potential to be directly applicable in the oral health care staff of the Family Health Strategy program throughout Brazil.

The purpose of this study is to compare the effectiveness of a traditional oral health educational program and a program based on the theories of the Motivational Interview directed to the child's mothers/fathers/responsible parents to reduce childhood caries (2 and 3 years of age).

Randomized clinical trial nested in a cohort. The study will be conducted at SSC-GHC, which is composed of 12 Basic Health Units (UBS) located in the Northern region of the city of Porto Alegre, RS-Brazil.