Public Health Dentistry in the curricular structure of dental courses in Brazil

• Autor(a) principal: Cunha Bernardes Rodrigues, Renata Prata
• Data de Publicação: 2006
• Outros Autores: Saliba, Nemre Adas, Saliba Moimaz, Suzely Adas
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Revista da ABENO (Online)
• Texto Completo: https://revabeno.emnuvens.com.br/revabeno/article/view/1453
• topic: Education; dental. Curriculum. Dentistry. Education. Public health dentistry; Educação em Odontologia. Currículo. Odontologia. Educação. Odontologia em saúde pública.

The area of Public Health Dentistry plays a fundamental role in the formation of the professional as required by the National Curriculum Guidelines for undergraduate courses of Dentistry, implemented in 2002. This study analyzed the characteristics of the disciplines of the area of Public Health Dentistry in the curricula of dental courses in the country, considering the duration of classes, number of terms, name used, course format, teaching methodology, and evaluation. Letters were sent to 123 schools of Dentistry from which at least one class had graduated up to 2003, requesting their curricular structure and syllabus. Fifty colleges sent the material requested back (40.65% of those contacted). The duration of classes apportioned to Public Health Dentistry is heterogeneous, varying from 75 to 699 hours, and 44.18% of the dental schools assigned 200 to 324 hours to this course. In relation to the number of semesters required for Public Health Dentistry, it was found that the participating dental schools apportioned 1 to 8 semesters to this course, and most of them assigned 2 or 3 semesters (20.93% each) or 4 semesters (27.91%) to Public Health Dentistry. The name used by the schools to refer to the area of Public Health Dentistry varied, and Social and Preventive Dentistry was most commonly used (30%). It was observed that all courses had a theoretical-practical character. Teaching methodologies or strategies cited most often by the schools were expositive classes (100%) and seminars (71.88%). The evaluation was usually performed by means of written tests (100%) and practical tests (80%). It can be concluded that, in relation to the characteristics analyzed in the area of Public Health Dentistry, most colleges offer a class duration of 75 to 324 hours, have 2 to 4 semesters for teaching the class contents, the most used name to refer to this area is Social and Preventive Dentistry, all courses have a theoreticalpractical character; the most often cited teaching methodologies are expositive classes and seminars; and written tests and practical tests are the most commonly used methods for evaluation in the syllabi.