Brazilian Dental Students’ Attitudes About Provision of Care for Patients Living in Poverty

Journal of dental education

Christophe Bedos¹  Sreenath Madathil²  Angela Cristina Cilense Zuanon³  Belinda Nicolau⁴  Beatriz Ferraz dos Santos⁵ 

[1] Dr. Bedos is Associate Professor, Division of Oral Health and Society, Faculty of Dentistry, McGill University;Dr. Madathil is a PhD candidate, Division of Oral Health and Society, Faculty of Dentistry, McGill University;Dr. Zuanon is Professor, Department of Orthodontics and Pediatric Dentistry, Araraquara School of Dentistry, UNESP-Univ Estadual Paulista, Araraquara, São Paulo, Brazil;and Dr. Nicolau is Associate Professor, Division of Oral Health and Society, Faculty of Dentistry, McGill University.;Dr. Ferraz dos Santos is Research Director, Division of Dentistry, Department of Pediatric Surgery, Montreal Children’s Hospital, Montreal, Canada

DOI  :  10.21815/JDE.017.088

学科分类：口腔科学

来源: American Dental Education Association

【 摘 要 】

The aims of this study were to investigate dental students’ attitudes toward people living in poverty and the extent to which their perceptions were associated with their willingness to treat those patients in their future practice. All 910 dental students enrolled in three Brazilian public universities in 2010 were invited to take part in a cross-sectional survey. A total of 766 students (83.7% response rate) completed the self-administered questionnaire on their perceptions of and attitudes about poverty and their intention to provide dental care to poor people. The responding students showed slightly positive attitudes about people living in poverty; however, a high percentage (35%) reported thinking they were different from the rest of the population. Nevertheless, most of these students expressed willingness to provide care to underserved populations in their future practice; this willingness was found to be associated with their beliefs about poverty (OR 1.65; 95% CI=1.41–1.94). Overall, the study found that these dental students had altruistic views toward people living in poverty. However, they seemed to lack a deep understanding of poverty that may prevent them from acting on their good intentions.

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【 授权许可】

CC BY