Uso de plantas medicinais por pacientes atendidos nas clínicas do curso de Odontologia da UFC

Abstract

Introduction - The medicinal plants are products of popular knowledge, they are becoming a common practice for treatment and prevention of mouth`s disease, and it is being an object of researchers` interesting at odontology area due the needs of therapy with less toxicity and low costs. Objective: Analyzed the use of medicinal plants for the patients who looking for UFC Odontology`s service. Materials and Methods: Descriptive studies, transversal, quantitative, by using a questionnaire semi-structure. The informations were inserted in a data bank of Excel Program and, later, analyzed statistically by software Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 17.0 for Windows. The data were 5% of significance. Results and Conclusions: 109 patients used medicinal plants for several problems, it is being the most used Ginger (29%), Aroeira (26%) and Pomegranate (24%). It was observed that 31% of the patients used them for mouth inflammations, mouth ulcers and wounds (29%) e to oppose halitosis (27%). Approximately 53% of the individuals reported that they had chewed the plant bark. It was verified that 50% of the patients have considered them cured with the use of the plant, e to 97% of them, the indication came from relatives or friends. Only 4% reported that the undesirable effect. Although the literature points to anti-bacterial, anti-inflammatory and healing of some natural products in oral cavity, doctors and dental surgeons do not have the habit to prescript them, it is important that these professionals have the knowledge about those therapies to indicate them correctly attending the needs of population, since in this study was observed that the majority of the individual used medicinal plants by auto-medication.