Abstract

RABALDO BOTTAN, Elisabete; WESTPHAL BESEN, Leticia  and  CAMPOS, Luciane. COMPARATIVE STUDY OF KNOWLEDGE OF ORAL HEALTH AMONG ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEACHERS OF PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SCHOOLS. Odontol. Clín.-Cient. (Online) [online]. 2016, vol.15, n.1, pp. 1-6. ISSN 1677-3888.

Objective: To evaluate the knowledge and practice of teaching in oral health. This is a descriptive cross-sectional study. The target population consisted of 56 teachers of elementary education (1st to 5th grades) of public and private schools in a municipality in the state of Santa Catarina. The data collection tool was a selfadministered questionnaire. To determine the subjects' knowledge, four levels were defined. Results: Fortyeight teachers took part in the study, of which 85.71% were female, with average age of 30.02 years. The average time in the profession was of 0.41 years. All of them had participated in professional development courses, but only 27% stated that these courses had focused on oral health. Among those who stated that they had carried out activities in health education (91.66%), all mentioned that the most common themes were: eating habits, hygiene, vaccines and the environment. The resources most used to organize the classes on health were books, magazines and informative leaflets. Topics on transmissibility of dental caries, tooth erosion, tooth avulsion, and tooth formation obtained lower scores. Conclusion: There is a similar pattern of incomplete knowledge on oral health among the groups of teachers studied.

Keywords : Knowledge; Health Education, Dental; Health Promotion.