Labour dentistry: evaluation of the perception and knowledge of the graduating students and professionals about the new dentistry specialty

Abstract

Through history, Dentistry was based on the health/disease process evolution and, in the last decades, has been facing an activity decrease of the main oral disease, “the dental caries”. For this reason, a philosophical change has emerged and new specialties were created in order to insert professionals in the Health Promotion field. The Federal Council of Dentistry created the specialty “Labour Dentistry” and defined it as the specialty that aims to permanently search for the compatibility between the labour activity and the worker’s oral health care. The objective of this paper is to assess the perception and knowledge through a quality/ quantity questionnaire of two groups, both from the state of Paraná: Dentristy graduating students from Public and Private Institutions; Dental surgeons, pratictioners and specialists. The results informed that 88.55% of the professionals and 89.51% of the students agreed about the new specialty creation. As for providing arguments to assess their knowledge about the new specialty, 58.90% of the professionals did not contribute with any idea. Out of those who did support their opinion, only 26.64% presented coherence in their responses when compared to the specialty definitions and rules provided by the Federal Council of Dentistry. The general average in the multiple-choice question about the new specialty knowledge was 5,50. It is possible to conclude that the creation of the Labour Dentistry has not been absorbed yet by the professionals and graduating students, considering the conflictive opinions obtained in the instrument. A better propagation should be done in order to change knowledge level of professionals regarding the new specialty. Key words: Occupational dentistry. Occupational health.