Oral Changes for Poly Drug Users: Multicenter Study
Abstract
BACKGROUND: this consumption of drugs is linked to serious problems in several ways, including effects on oral health. OBJECTIVE: to investigate the association between oral changes and the time of consumption of drugs by polyusers treated at the Psychosocial Alcohol and Drugs Care Center of the Piauí State. METHOD: This is a multicenter, cross-sectional study, conducted with 331 poly drug users of five community-based services for people addicted to alcohol and other drugs in the cities of Teresina, Parnaíba, Picos and Piripiri, in the State of Piauí, Brazil. The data was collected from March 2012 to June 2013. We performed a descriptive statistics, calculation of central tendency measures, Pearson's Chi-square test and odds-ratio. RESULTS: The polyusers are men aged between 18 and 70 years old, single, brown, evangelical, public school students, with incomplete primary education and no income. The most prevalent disorders in their oral mucosa were caries (53.7%), dental losses (29.7%), oral mucosa blisters (12%), gingivitis (11.7%) and oral pruritus (6.3%). It is possible to infer that the caries are associated to drug use time (p-value = 0.021), those who use drugs for over a year have a higher chance of having this oral amendment. CONCLUSION: It was found that the presence of caries is linked to time and use of drugs. Therefore, the need for multidisciplinary performance in tracking these issues is emerging, as well as the development of strategies to face this problem, especially in educational and therapeutic perspective.
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