Impacto da pandemia de Covid-19 na qualidade de vida relacionada à saúde bucal de adolescentes de Santa Maria - RS

Abstract

In December 2019, the world was faced with the emergence of a new pathogen in China, the disease caused by it became known as Covid-19. In March 2020, as Covid-19 became an international health emergency and measures were adopted to stop the spread of the virus. One of these measures was social distancing, with the goal of restricting coexistence contact between people. These restrictions led to psychological, physical, social and economic consequences that influenced on general and oral health of populations. The objective of this study was to evaluate the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the oral health-related quality of life (OHRQoL) of adolescents from the city of Santa Maria - Rio Grande do Sul, throughout a year and three month-long period of time following the start of this pandemic. This is a longitudinal study, which evaluated a subsample of a cohort carried out in the city. Specifically for this study, the subset of the sample was evaluated at three different times: December 2019 to February 2020 – before the Covid-19 outbreak (T1), June and July 2020 - 3 months (T2) and June and July 2021 - 1 year and 3 months (T3) after the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. The research included 290 adolescents at T1, 207 were reevaluated at T2 and 204 at T3. OHRQoL was assessed using the Brazilian short version of the Child Perceptions Questionnaire 11-14 (CPQ11-14 -ISF:16). In addition, socioeconomic, clinical, and demographic variables such as family income, dental caries, and adolescent age were also collected. Data analyses was performed using STATA 14.0. A descriptive analysis of the sample was carried out according to the characteristics evaluated at T1, T2 and T3. Changes in OHRQoL before, 3 months and 1 year and 3 months after the start of the Covid-19 pandemic were evaluated using adjusted Multilevel Poisson regression models for repeated measures with random effect. The results are presented in Rate Ratio (RR) and 95% confidence interval (95% CI). Regarding total scores, the overall throughout the follow-up CPQ11-14, the mean score was 11 (SD 8.0) at T1, 8.3 (SD 7.8) at T2, and 12.8 (SD 8.7) at T3. In the adjusted analysis, compared to T1, adolescents had an average 29% lower (IRR 0.71 95%CI 0.66–0.75) and 11% higher (IRR 1.11 95%CI 1.05–1 .17) in the total scores CPQ11-14, at T2 and T3, respectively. Analyzing the CPQ11-14 domains, the emotional well-being had a mean score that was 43% lower (IRR 0.57 95%CI 0.50-0.66) and 25% higher (IRR 1.25 95%CI 1.12-1.40) from T2 and T3, respectively, comparing to T1. Regarding the social well-being, comparing to T1, the mean was 44% lower (IRR 0.56 95%CI 0.47-0.68) in T2 and 17% higher in T3 (IRR 1.17 95% CI 1.01-1.35). In conclusion, the Covid-19 pandemic, indicated an improvement in OHRQoL and social and emotional well-being domains as an immediate effect, but after 1 years and 3 months, oral health have a greater negative impact on the quality of life of adolescents.