Acesso ao endodontista e aos tratamentos endodônticos radicais no Sistema Único de Saúde na região sudeste do Brasil

Abstract

The Unified Health System ( SUS) offers full and free dental care to its users, including endodontic treatments. However, access to specialists and their procedures is often unequal, which raises the need to uderstand how disparities interfere with these variables. Objective: To evaluate access to endodontists and radical endodontic treatments in the SUS in the Southeast region of Brazil in the last 15 years. Methods : An ecological, analytical and quantitative study was carried out using data from the Outpatient Information System ( SAI/SUS). The number of dentists specializing in endodontics and radical procedures ( pulpectomy) in the permanente teeth performed in the last 15 years were retrieved (2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012)(2013)(2014)(2015)(2016)(2017)(2018)(2019)(2020)(2021)(2022). The temporal trend of raw and population-normalized values was estimated with a significance level of 5%. Results:Its is observed that an annual average of 690 professionals worked in the SUS, representing, proportionally, 39,2% of the national average. Over the last 15 years, 3.365.569 radical endodontic tratments were performed in the southeast region by endodontists , representing 30,2% of the national number. Over time, there are significantly increasing trends in the number of professionals and procedures in the Southeast region ( P-value >0.05). There was a significant and positive correlation of such variables between the Southeast region and Brazil (P-value >0.05). Conclusion: Access to endodontists and amount of radical endodontics treatments performed by these specialists in the SUS have increased significantly over the last 15 years in the southeast region of Brazil.