Summary
In Mexico, oral health disease is among the greatest health care demands in health services. These are evident in the higher vulnerability of migrant worker populations regarding major healthcare issues. Oral health literacy (OHL) is the ability of individuals to obtain, process and understand information of basic health services. The aim of the study was to ascertain the state of oral hygiene and its relation with the level of oral health literacy of Mexican migrant farm workers. A cross-sectional study was carried out, with a sample size of 208 subjects selected for convenience and calculated by the expected OR. Subjects 18 years of age or older with signed informed consent were included. The variables studied were: Oral health literacy, simplified oral hygiene index (OHI-S) and Community Index of Periodontal (CPI). Descriptive and inferential analyses were performed. In this evaluation, 53.0 % of the sample were men. The mean age was 30.7±10.8 years. The average oral health literacy was 7.8±6.9, the average hygiene index was 1.7±1.0 and the community periodontal index was 2.0±0.7. The multiple linear regression of the CPI shows that the age and OHLA-S scores account for 22.0 % of the variance and the OHLA-S indirectly influences the IHO-S. This study reflects the importance of performing health interventions focused not only on oral health knowledge, but also considering the age of the individual and maintaining open future lines of research on this subject in different populations.
KEY WORDS: emigrants and immigrants, transients, migrants, health status, health status indicators, oral health, oral hygiene, oral hygiene index, periodontal index.
How to cite this article
GARCÍA, M. D.; OTZEN, T.; DE LA FUENTE-HERNÁNDEZ, J. & MANTEROLA, C. Oral hygiene and periodontal health in migrant farm workers and its association with functional literacy in oral health. Int. J. Odontostomat., 15(1):159-165, 2021.
