Processo de trabalho das equipes de saúde bucal da Atenção Primária à Saúde na pandemia da Covid-19 em uma capital do Nordeste.

Abstract

The hegemony of the privatized medical-care model has contributed to an increasingly isolated dentist-centered oral health practice, with the tooth and oral-dental pathologies as the main objects of work, limiting the dentist's work to the office and reducing the understanding of their role as part of the health team. Since 2004, published guidelines have sought to build a user-centered health care model, but with the decree of the covid-19 pandemic in March 2020, the need for changes in oral health practices has emerged to reduce the increase in cases and deaths related to the disease. To this end, institutions in the sector have developed proposals for reorganizing services to mitigate cases and protect their professionals. The aim of this study was to identify the strategies proposed for oral health teams in PHC by the federal, state and municipal levels before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. A case study with a quantitative and qualitative approach was carried out, through documentary analysis of the oral health work process in PHC before and during the suspension of elective care in the COVID-19 pandemic, in the light of the theoretical framework of the 'Theory of the Health Work Process' and Health Care Models. Five documents were identified that guided oral health practices before the pandemic and 21 after March 2020, when the pandemic began. Among the documents guiding dentists' practices in the SUS, PHC, before the pandemic, recommended actions, activities and procedures that were closer to care that was more centered on the user and their needs, presenting characteristics of an alternative model to the hegemonic one. With the arrival of the pandemic and the suspension of dental care in health services, care actions were reduced to emergency consultations, while procedures that had been slowly occupying a space for health care, such as Teleodontology, entered the PHC list. Although the construction of professional practices before the pandemic converged towards a health care model aimed at solving problems and the population's health needs, with COVID-19 there have been changes in care practices, with little evidence of promotion and prevention actions.