Conhecimento dos acadêmicos de odontologia da UNISC na prevenção e na detecção precoce de câncer oral.

Abstract

The oral cancer is considered a problem of public health worldwide, and, the dental surgeon must have knowledge about the pathologies that involve the oral cavity for the appropriate examination, aiming the early diagnosis and the prevention. The objective of the present study was to analyze if the academics of the Dental School of the University of Santa Cruz do Sul perform the prevention and early diagnosis of oral cancer in their clinical practice. The participants were 154 academics from the Dental School of sixth, eighth and tenth semester of the year 2015. The research instrument was a semi-structured questionnaire with 11 questions. In the studied population 87,1% had knowledge of how to perform the examination of early diagnosis of the oral cancer, however 32.65% answered that they do not make frequently the attendance. Referred to the prevention of oral cancer, 53.78% already has passed information to their patients. Although all the academics consider important the role of dental surgeon in the prevention and in the early diagnosis of the oral cancer, a considerable number of academics do not perform the examination of early diagnosis frequently in the attendance and almost the half never informed about the prevention of oral cancer to the patients that they attended.