Intrafamily Violence: knowledge and conduct of dentists

Abstract

Introduction: Domestic violence widely identified as the neglect and the abuse of children and adolescents, domestic violence against women, abuse of the elderly and people with disabilities. It is the ethical-legal duty of the dentists to carry out compulsory notification in these cases. Objective: To verify the knowledge and the conduct of dentists about domestic violence in the municipality of Caicó-RN, Brazil. Material and Methods: cross-seccional, descriptive study with a quantitative approach. The study’s sample consisted og 66 dentists from the municipality of Caicó-RN. Data collection took place through the application of questions adapted from the validated questionnaire by Mythri (205). Data analysis was performed using descriptive statistics. Results: 53% of dentists said they had seen victims of domestic violence whose only 37.9% asked their patients about the reasons for the violence. The dentist's most cited conduct, face of a violence case was the counseling. It can be pointed out that 87.9% of the professionals claimed to know the signs, symptoms and orofacial injuries resulting from domestic violence and most of them reported it was the hematoma. The professionals demonstrated to be aware about the anatomic location of the aggressions of domestic violence that it was in the region where Dentistry professionals work. Conclusion: Dental surgeons have satisfactory knowledge regarding the recognition of signs and symptoms resulting from orofacial injuries caused by domestic violence. However, regarding how to proceed in that cases, their conduct was insufficient and contradictory.