Perception of the professors of a Dentistry course about low intensity laser therapy

• Autor(a) principal: Ambrósio, Marcos Flávio Spínola
• Data de Publicação: 2022
• Outros Autores: Jesus, Eduarda Barboza Layber de, Barros, Liliana Aparecida Pimenta de
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por; eng
• Título da fonte: Revista da ABENO (Online)
• Texto Completo: https://revabeno.emnuvens.com.br/revabeno/article/view/1885
• topic: Terapia a Laser; Educação em Odontologia; Currículo; Laser Therapy; Dentistry Education; Curriculum

The trend in dentistry is to incorporate less invasive methods. Therefore, we believe that low intensity laser therapy (LILT) can be a treatment option, as it has proven beneficial effects. The present study aims to trace the teaching pattern and teachers' perception of the use of low intensity laser therapy in the Dentistry undergraduate course at the Federal University of Espírito Santo. In addition, we intend to analyze the presence of laser therapy subject in Brazilian dental programs. The research was based on an analytical, cross-sectional, and descriptive study. A questionnaire was applied to 44 professors of dentistry at the Federal University of Espírito Santo. From this study, it was obtained that 9 percent of all the teaching staff stated that they use lasers in some of the activities of the subjects they teach. This low percentage was justified by the teachers due to the lack of financial resources to obtain the equipment. It was observed that most of the teaching staff have already known about the laser, 45.4 percent during their graduate studies. When the curricular structure of the 461 Brazilian higher education institutions of dentistry was evaluated, it is noted that 13 offer laser therapy in their curricular program. It can be concluded that there is a considerable level of knowledge about lasers among the teaching staff. However, it is observed a lack of dissemination of information among the different disciplines of the analyzed course.