Identificação de vítimas de violência intrafamiliar: conhecimentos e condutas de cirurgiões-dentistas de uma instituição pública de ensino

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: The head and neck region and oral cavity are sites frequently involved in situations of physical violence, leaving the dentist in a favorable position to identify them, however, intrafamily violence still goes unnoticed by health professionals. OBJECTIVE: To describe the knowledge and behavior of dentists, teaching and non-teaching staff in a dental course at a public university about intrafamily physical violence. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Descriptive, cross- sectional, quantitative study. The sample consisted of 41 dentists from a public educational institution. Data were collected through a online structured questionnaire. Information was collected on the sociodemographic profile, the perception and atitude of violence intrafamily and knowledge about the legislation. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, using the Statistical Packcage for the Social Sciences® (SPSS) software, version 22.0 for Windows. The “Pearson's Chi-square” and “Fisher's exact” tests were used, with a 95% confidence interval. RESULTS: Only 16 professionals (39.0%) felt capable of diagnosing these injuries and only 21, 0% of the research subjects reported suspected cases of violence. 51.2% claimed to know what compulsory notification means, 68.3% did not know how to notify a case of intrafamily violence. There was a statistical association between having received training and suspecting injuries resulting from intrafamily violence (p=0.019) and between having received training and knowing how to report intrafamily violence (p=0.021). CONCLUSIONS: There are knowledge gaps in relation to the notification of intrafamily violence, as well as about the current legislation.