Caregiver's experience regarding access to dental services for patients with special needs

Abstract

Access to health services is one of the main challenges faced by the universalization and implementation of the Unified Health System (SUS) as a model of public policy for health care for the Brazilian population. Thus, the present study aimed to analyze the experience of caregivers of patients with special needs (PNE) regarding accessibility to dental care provided at the Oral Diagnosis and Dentistry Unit for Special Patients (UDOPE) in Aracaju/SE. This is an exploratory and descriptive qualitative analysis study carried out between May and June 2024 with caregivers of PNE treated at UDOPE. The interviews were recorded, transcribed, organized, and analyzed through content analysis with the aid of Interface R and IRAMUTEQ Software. Forty-one caregivers of PNE were interviewed, from the most varied municipalities of Sergipe. The PNE were 20 females and 21 males, with an average age of 23 years. Regarding the type of need, patients were diagnosed with more than one need, including autism 12, intellectual disability 18, microcephaly 9, cerebral palsy 7, and Down syndrome 8. For the qualitative analysis, caregivers who did not live in Aracaju were considered, totaling 28. Reinert's analysis identified 7 thematic classes, which were about the access structure offered to the PNE for providing care, difficulties encountered, operation of health transport, and specificities of special needs that denote special transport conditions. The Chi-square test (χ2) indicated a higher degree of statistical significance for the words in class 3 with the word “support”, followed by class 1 with the word “mark”, showing an association between the words. In the similarity analysis and the word cloud, the most prevalent were transportation and no, showing an association between the words. Although caregivers claim that transportation is offered every day to come for care, they allege problems such as the type of transportation offered, overcrowding, and delays in returning to the municipality of origin, in addition to specific issues related to each need.