Social protection models and the right to dental care for people with disabilities

Abstract

Knowing and synthesizing the expectations and recommendations about dental care as a right to oral health for people with disabilities (PwD) is essential to assist decision makers. An integrative review was carried out, searching the PubMed, Embase, LILACS, and VHL databases for articles published up to August 30, 2021. Term mining techniques were adopted via the Rayyan platform. The content analysis was based on the welfare state theory. Sixteen articles were included. Expanding access was a need shared by all studies. The main expectations and recommendations were: the guarantee of civil rights and the reorientation of the oral health care model (liberal model); the need for professional qualification, systematic and free dental care, integration between services, multidisciplinary work and guaranteed financing (conservative model); the qualification of infrastructure and workforce; and the systemic articulation between care levels (social-democratic model). A complex and sometimes contradictory scenario of propositions was observed, subject to indications with little potential for change, especially if contemporary challenges arising from the economic crises and the welfare State that imply serious constraints to the models of social protection and the rights of PwD are not considered.