Avaliação dos níveis de letramento em saúde bucal de uma equipe multiprofissional hospitalar

Abstract

Oral Health Literacy indicates the ability of people to obtain, process and understand basic information about oral health, in addition to knowing how to use the services necessary to make appropriate decisions about their health. The objective of this study was to evaluate the levels of LSB of a multidisciplinary team of a referral hospital in rehabilitation and readaptation. A sociodemographic and occupational questionnaire and an LSB assessment instrument called Rapid Estimate of Adult Literacy in Brazilian Dentistry (BREALD-30) were used. To assess the LSB, 229 health professionals were interviewed. Data were subjected to descriptive statistics. The D'Agostino-Pearson normality test was applied to define the type of distribution. Student's t test, ANOVA, Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis tests were applied. For all tests used, a significance level of 5% was adopted. The sample consisted of 51.1% female and 48.9% male. The mean age was 35 years (±7.9). The highest percentage of respondents was from the nursing team, followed by the medical team. They are professionals who work more than ten hours a day, have good oral hygiene habits and have already undergone dental treatment in private services. Comparison of LSB level with sociodemographic and occupational data did not show statistical significance. When evaluating the associations between LSB and the knowledge of oral pathologies and oral manifestations of systemic diseases, it was observed that the team knows how to detect halitosis (p=0.0421), sialorrhea (p=0.421) and knows the relationship of halitosis with systemic diseases (p=0.0423). Furthermore, it showed that training (p=0.0360) and knowledge acquired during professional training (p=0.0394) do not interfere with LSB. There was a significant association between professionals who are aware of the existence of the dental service at the hospital (p=0.0155). The knowledge in oral health identified with the high levels of LSB of the professionals surveyed, do not translate into everyday practice in patient care. Although this study revealed important associations regarding LSB, this evidence should be viewed with caution, since it was not possible to compare the result with other data from the scientific literature within the developed theme. However, these are important data, since it showed that, despite the high level of LSB, it is not knowledge added to the assistance by the professionals interviewed