Influência da relação binômio pais-filhos na resiliência, estresse, práticas parentais e letramento em saúde bucal

Abstract

Stress is the body's response to various stimuli and can affect parental care. Parenting may be associated with moments of imbalance between the resources parents have to handle their role demands, triggering parental stress. Resilience comes into this process as the parents' ability to positively cope with these adverse situations. Pediatric dental treatment is a stressful stimulus, as it causes fear and anxiety for many children and their parents. A cross-sectional study was conducted to evaluate the resilience, stress, parental practices and oral health literacy (OHL) of parents of children aged 4 to 12 years treated at the Pediatric Dentistry Clinic of the Faculty of Dentistry of the Federal University of Alfenas, as well as the related factors. For this, the Resilience Scale, Parental Stress Scale, Perceived Stress Scale, Parental Practices Inventory and a brazilian versios of the Rapid Estimate of Adult Literacy in Dentistry (BREALD-30) were used. Additionally, a structured questionnaire was used to evaluate sociodemographic data, and a clinical record was used to assess oral health status through the dmft/DMFT index. After confirming the non-normality of the data, Kruskal-Wallis, Mann Whitney and Chi-Square, Binary Regression, and Poisson Regression tests were performed using SPSS 22.0 software (P<0.05). A total of 153 parent-child pairs participated, of which 53.6% (n=82) were male children, with a mean age of 7.62 (±2.32) years, and 88.1% (n=118) were female caregivers, with a mean age of 35.91 (±9.70) years. An association was found between resilience and perceived stress (P<0.01), and parental practices (P<0.01), where those in the low resilience group had higher levels of perceived stress and less involvement with their children. Factors such as being parents of boys ([PR]:2.75; [95%CI]: 1.21-6.24) and working all day ([PR]:0.21; [95%CI]:0.06-0.67) were associated with parental stress levels. The work condition, such as working full-time, also showed a statistically significant association with perceived stress ([PR]: 0.80; [95%CI]:0. 67-0.95). Additionally, parental practices ([RP]:0.97; [IC95%]: 0.96-0.99) and OHL ([PR]:0.97; [CI95%]: 0.95-0.99) were associated with children’s oral health status, where children of parents with higher levels of involvement and higher OHL, had better oral condition. From these data, it is concluded that parental resilience, is directly associated with parenting practices, how they engage with their children, and perceived stress levels acquired due to everyday situations. Thus, resilience is not linked to parental stress but to general stress. On the other hand, parental stress was related to employment and the child’s gender, with parents who do not work outside the home and parents of boys showing higher levels of stress. Additionally, an association was observed between parental practices and OHL and children’s oral health status, as well as other factors such as the child’s gender, age, and socioeconomic status.