Resumo

TORNAVOI, Denise Cremonezzi; GALO, Rodrigo  e  SILVA, Ricardo Henrique Alves da. Knowledge of dentistry's professionals on domestic violence. RSBO (Online) [online]. 2011, vol.8, n.1, pp. 54-59. ISSN 1984-5685.

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the knowledge of dentists graduated from the School of Dentistry of Ribeirão Preto, University of São Paulo (FORP-USP) between 1998 and 2009 about domestic violence against children, women and elderly. MATERIAL AND METHODS: A questionnaire with multiple-choice questions was applied to 180 subjects and the collected data were subjected to statistical analysis. RESULTS: The majority of respondents never treated or suspected that a patient had been a victim of domestic violence, and affirmed not being able to identify cases of physical abuse. Forty-five percent, however, would report child abuse to the legal authorities; in cases of violence against women and elderly people, 69% and 40%, respectively, would talk to the victim. The differences between the responses obtained at the different senior years were not statistically significant. CONCLUSION: Despite the advances made in this area of undergraduate education, the dentist still needs to develop competencies and skills for dealing with domestic violence regarding its identification and approaches to be followed.

Palavras-chave : domestic violence; Dentistry; knowledge.