Conocimientos, actitudes y prácticas del autoexamen bucal en estudiantes de odontología de la universidad Santo Tomás

Abstract

Introduction: Oral self-examination is a very useful strategy that forms part of the diagnostic method for the early detection of prevalent diseases, which is of the utmost importance for more effective and timely treatments that reduce the complexity and magnitude of said diseases in order to increase the rate of healing. Objective: To determine the knowledge, attitudes and practices about oral self-examination in students attending the sixth to tenth semester of the Santo Tomás University. Materials and methods: Observational, analytical cross-sectional study, a questionnaire of knowledge, attitudes and practices on oral self-examination validated by experts with 16 questions by the Google forms tool was applied to 200 dentistry students in their last semesters. A univariate statistical analysis was performed through absolute frequencies with their percentages and bivariate with the application of the chi2 and Fisher's exact tests. Results: According to the sociodemographic characteristics, the majority of the participants were in an age range between 18 to 21 years in 55.00% (110), 72.50% (145) were female, belonging to the middle class (strata 4) in 41.00% (82) and coursing sixth semester in 38.50% (77). Regarding the level of knowledge 58.50% (117) and attitudes 50.50% (101) have a regular level, on the other hand in the practice section it was bad in 80.50% (161). There were no statistically significant associations between the sections and the sociodemographic characteristics due to p values greater than 0.05. Conclusions: there was an absence of homogeneity regarding having received educational information on self-examination in a pertinent manner, thus there is a need to improve knowledge and even more so the practice of this self-examination in patient care.