Perception of dental students about child abuse in the city of Florianópolis (Santa Catarina - BR)

Abstract

Child abuse is still a major health problem in Brazil and worldwide, with more than 75 thousand notifications in Brazil in 2020. It is of utmost importance that health professionals are trained to identify and report suspected and reported cases of child abuse. In many cases, dental surgeons are the first professionals to have contact with the victim, so they must be able to proceed correctly. This research analyzed the perception of dental students from the Federal University of Santa Catarina about child abuse and their instruction to make the compulsory notification to the authorities in the city of Florianópolis. An electronic questionnaire with open and closed questions was applied to a non-probabilistic sample through a cross-sectional study. More than 97% (97.1%) of respondents said they knew what child abuse was; however, almost 80% (78.3%) said they did not know how to proceed when faced with a case and almost 90% (89.9%) said they did not know the legislation about compulsory notification and more than 80% (82.6%) said they were interested in seeking information on the subject. It is essential that dental students and dentists are able not only to identify cases of child abuse, but how to proceed and end the cycle of violence in which this child is inserted.