Orofacial changes associated with the use of piercing in adolescents

Abstract

Introduction: Currently, there is an increase in the use of orofacial piercing in adolescents, especially attributable to the popularity of piercing by many icons of the moment. Objective: To identify the orofacial changes associated with the use of piercing in adolescents from Tony Alomá high school. Method: A descriptive and cross-sectional study was carried out on 1 071 adolescents registered in this school center during the 2020-2021 academic year. The analyzed variables were: wearer of the piercing, sex, causes that motivated the use of piercing, harmful or toxic habits, legal tutors' support, piercing type, localization, moment in which the orofacial changes appeared; local and functional orofacial changes. Results: It was found that for every 100 schoolchildren, six had piercing and 76.8 % were female. Intraoral locations predominated on the tongue (50.0 %) and labial frenums (41.7 %). Local orofacial changes were identified, such as the skin (38.3 %) and vascular (36.7 %) lesions, as well as sialorrhea (31.7 %). The functional problems were represented by speech disorders (21.7 %). Conclusions: The frequency of adolescents with piercing was low, although the most commonly used ones, being intraoral, caused skin and vascular lesions, sialorrhea and speech disorders.

Keywords

• adolescente
• perforación del cuerpo
• perforación de la ceja
• perforación de la lengua
• perforación de la oreja
• perforación del labio.