Relationship between oral habits and spirometry maneuvers, in children

ABSTRACT Purpose: to analyze whether deleterious oral habits can influence the number of attempts of forced spirometry maneuvers performed by healthy children. Methods: this observational and cross-sectional analytical study included 149 healthy children aged 6-12 years attending public and private schools in Florianópolis, SC, Brazil. A validated protocol was applied for the analysis of deleterious oral habits. The children were grouped according to the number of spirometry maneuvers needed to achieve successful spirometry results, as follows: G1) children who needed 3 maneuvers; G2) 4 maneuvers; G3) 5-8 maneuvers. Data were analyzed with the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test and the Kruskal-Wallis test was applied to compare quantitative variables between the groups. The Chi-square test was used to assess the association between the groups and qualitative variables. Results: there was no association between the number of attempts and the qualitative variables evaluated by the protocol. There was also no difference between the groups regarding quantitative variables for breastfeeding time, breastfeeding occurrence, use of pacifiers, and thumb sucking. Conclusion: the presence of DOH did not influence the number of forced spirometry maneuvers, performed by the healthy children in this study.