Health Promotion: a strategy to reinforce oral health practices

Abstract

The objective of the present study is to assess the knowledge of dentists working at Public Health Services in Campinas (São Paulo State of Brazil) about health promotion; to verify if health promotion practices are being performed in health care units; to measure the impact of information about promotion of the health supplied by a specific reference book. For in such a way, a non experimental study of quantitative approach was carried out, using a half-structuralized questionnaire and a specific reference book that was applied as intervention. The probabilistic sample was composed by 109 dentists of Campinas-SP (60.51% of total). The delineation of the study had as base the application of a pre-test, the delivery of a reference book with information about health promotion and the application of a post-test. The assessment tool was a half-structuralized questionnaire; the collected data have been analyzed by tables of frequency and comparisons of the previous and posterior answers to the test of the professionals who had returned the questionnaires (57,7%). For this, the not-parametric test McNemar (p < 0,005) was used. The actions regarding health promotion were developed, in its majority, in schools (79,2%) and day-care centers (47,9%). 96,8% of the dentists were giving advise about common factors of risk for the buccal health and general. The percentage of correct answer regarding the knowledge about health promotion was higher in all analyzed questions after reading the reference book. The conclusion is that, most of the volunteers presented deficiency in technical knowledge regarding the concept of health promotion; the approach about the health risk factors, at the Public Health Service in Campinas/SP is common; the use of a reference book with an assessment about the health promotion theme has proved being a good strategy for the acquisition of knowledge to worker of the health area. Key words: Promotion health. Oral health.