PURPOSE: to check the responses to the strategies for removing sucking habits in children from the Family Health Program (FHP) in Olinda-PE. In addition, to identify the periodicity for the main types of oral habits. METHODS: a longitudinal interventional and descriptive study with cross-sections, , with 90 children aged from 2 to 11 years, followed by the team of the Department of Speech-Language Pathology/ Funeso, in the FHP of Jardim Fragoso, in Olinda, during 2007 and who had deleterious oral habits. The instruments and phases contemplated in this research included the ludic approach to the effects of prolonged bad oral habits, the application of questionnaire directed to the parents or caregivers and to the infants and the clinical evaluation, with control related to the removal of those habits in the children, in a period of 30 days. RESULTS: 53.3% of the surveyed children were male and 46.7% were female. All have deleterious oral habits, where 48.9% had only one type of habit and 46.7% and 4.4%, two and three types of associated habits, respectively. Deleterious sucking habits were the most prevalent, with 52.2% for the use of pacifiers, 50% for bottle-feeding and 22.2% for finger sucking. Thirty days after the intervention, 26 children or 28.9% of the sample removed these habits. CONCLUSION: the employed strategies achieved the removal of all types of habits, according to the settled distribution, and they need to be controlled for a longer time to such an effect.
Habits; Oral Health; Primary Health Care