Avaliação do nível de conhecimento dos alunos formandos em odontologia no reconhecimento de câncer de boca em diferentes faculdades de Minas Gerais

Abstract

Oral cancer is a public health problem which presents challenges often related to its late detection and the lack of preventive education. Thus, the dental surgeon, as one of the first professionals to have primary contact with the disease, must be apt to prevent, diagnose and responsibly refer patients to definitive treatment. This study evaluated the knowledge level on oral cancer in dentistry students in their graduation year, in four different institutions in the east of Minas Gerais. This is a quantitative, analytical, observational cross-sectional study, using a questionnaire containing 25 objective questions, addressing themes of self-assessment of students' knowledge on oral cancer and specific concepts about etiology, diagnosis and treatment of oral cancer, filled in via google forms. The sample size consisted of 78 dentistry students, with the majority being represented by eighth and ninth-period students. Of the participants, 3% felt “very secure” in relation to their self-assessment about the knowledge of oral cancer, 57.7% revealed that they felt “low confidence” to perform diagnostic procedures, 69% identified improving their knowledge post graduation as "very important", 96.2% recognize the role of the dental surgeon as "very important" and 83.3% correctly identified squamous cell carcinoma as the most common type of oral cavity cancer. Although students have knowledge about aspects of oral cancer, a significant number do not have the confidence to perform clinical procedures such as biopsies, considering, still, irregular and/or insufficient training for early diagnosis of oral cancer during graduation. Thus, further studies on the subject are necessary, so that new effective strategies can be devised and implemented in the students' academic education.