Atividades educativas em saúde bucal desenvolvidas por cirurgiões-dentistas com escolares: uma revisão sistematizada da literatura

Dentists can effectively promote oral health through education. However, this is challenging in terms of ensuring effective and transformative learning attitudes and lifestyle habits. This systematized review addressed the role of the dentist as an educator capable of promoting student action while further reflecting on the professional training process in the same context. The LILACS and BBO databases were thus consulted through the Biblioteca Virtual em Saude and SciELO. Searches were restricted to publications from 2009 to 2019 that were written in Portuguese and conducted in Brazil. The following search terms were used: education, childhood, oral health, and dentistry. A total of nine returned articles dealing with educational activities designed to teach oral health to schoolchildren were selected for analysis. A subsequent reflection was conducted to assess dentist qualifications according the National Curricular Guidelines on Dentistry. It was observed that educational actions were extremely important for children, with positive impacts on their lifestyles in regard to both clinical and behavioral conditions. A careful assessment was conducted regarding the elements proposed to dentists during training, including current curricular proposals aimed at expanding competencies and skills outside the clinical setting. There were positive aspects related to oral health actions in this regard. However, dentists are still expected to transpose barriers that allow greater participation in educational activities despite the current environment created by new curricular proposals, which this study found were essential for schoolchildren.