Herramientas Digitales en Protocolos de Prevención de Salud Oral Infantil: Revisión de Literatura
Digital Tools in Children's Oral Health Prevention Protocols: A Literature Review
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.29394/Scientific.issn.2542-2987.2026.11.e1.11.162-183Palabras clave:
salud oral infantil, herramientas digitales, teleodontología, gamificación, prevenciónResumen
En Ecuador, el modelo del sistema de salud enfatiza la promoción y la prevención en salud oral, pero una proporción relevante de los niños no recibe atención odontológica, y la telemedicina, pese a un marco normativo vigente, se limita a acciones puntuales que no abordan la salud oral. Ante este panorama, el artículo analiza, mediante una revisión narrativa de la literatura, la evidencia disponible sobre la implementación de herramientas digitales (aplicaciones móviles, teleodontología y sistemas de información clínica) en protocolos de atención preventiva infantil. Se empleó un enfoque cualitativo, un método analítico-sintético y un diseño documental-bibliográfico, con búsqueda temática en bases como PubMed/MEDLINE, Scopus y SciELO, a partir de un corpus de 40 fuentes académicas (36 estudios temáticos y cuatro referencias metodológicas), organizado en tres ejes: aplicaciones educativas y gamificación, teleodontología y sistemas de información clínica, y estrategias educativas complementarias. Los hallazgos indican que las aplicaciones móviles y los recursos gamificados mejoran indicadores intermedios de higiene oral en el corto plazo, con dudas sobre su sostenibilidad y su disponibilidad para la primera infancia; que la teleodontología ofrece una vía plausible para ampliar el acceso, incluso en zonas rurales; y que la evidencia sobre sistemas de información clínica es todavía incipiente e indirecta. Se concluye que incorporar estas tecnologías en los protocolos nacionales es pertinente, condicionado al desarrollo de herramientas adaptadas localmente y a la coordinación sostenida entre instituciones públicas.
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