Conhecimento dos estudantes de um curso de odontologia sobre a prevenção das doenças relacionadas ao trabalho

Abstract

Ensuring a risk-free health implies quality of life and involves the individual and his environment; in this context, it was proposed to expand the ergonomics guidelines and functions applied to dentistry in the prevention of occupational diseases; developing new proposals for the organization of work, reviewing the organizational culture of universities and helping to decrease the prevalence of diseases related to work. The objective was to identify the knowledge of academics on ergonomics, work-related diseases and their prevention, as well as to highlight the contribution of the University in the construction of knowledge. A questionnaire was applied to dental course students from the 6th to the 10th period of the Federal University of Paraiba, totaling 75% of the students enrolled in the 2014.2 semester. It was found that, although most of the evaluated students had some understanding of ergonomics, 70.4% expressed dissatisfaction with the teaching of this subject at university and 88.1% said that the university offers no preventive measure against mechanical risks related to work, although it has been alleged that those preventive measures exist in order to avoid biological risks. As for occupational diseases, students showed greater knowledge about diseases of mechanical causes such as Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI) / Work-related Musculoskeletal Disorders (WRMSD) (54.1%), while diseases of biological causes obtained only 7.1% of claims. It was concluded that the basic principles of ergonomics taught theoretically are not satisfactory and the applicability of preventive ergonomic measures to combat diseases of mechanical origins was minimally highlighted. It is essential that these preventive measures become effectively used in clinics, consolidating the training of future professionals.