Urgent dental care and self medication in the economic active population of a delimited urban area of São Paulo / Urgência odontológica e prevalência da automedicação na população economicamente ativa de uma micro-área da cidade de São Paulo

AUTOR(ES)

Luiz Eugênio Nigro Mazzilli

DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2008

RESUMO

This work aims at studying the issue of self medication that precedes the public dental urgent care, within the economically active population of a metropolitan microarea of São Paulo. The primary data were obtained through assisted interview with users of the Urgent Care Section of the University of São Paulo Faculty of Dentistry, between September 2007 and March 2008. The study, approved by the Ethics Committee of the University of São Paulo Faculty of Dentistry report 75/2007, focused on the connection between demographic, occupational and behavioural factors (as independent variables) and self medication (dependent variable). The data were processed with the SPSS 13 software, assuming the null hypothesis for p values higher than 0.05 (CI 95%). The results indicated that 85.6% of the participants had previously used medicines 73.6% of them by self medication (65.6% of the whole sample). A larger prevalence of self medication was observed within the group between 17 and 44 years of age, and those with some kind of paid activity. Positive associations were observed when it happened: a) a larger time period between the perception of the problem and the search for professional care; b) a larger degree of interference of the oral condition onto the occupational practice; c) weekly labour journey equal or higher than 40 hours. Such results indicate that occupational factors do significantly influence on self-medication preceding urgent dental care. Moreover, this research emphasises the importance of improvements in educational practices, monitoring and oral health promotion. It is believed that such measures will be more effective if introduced together with sustainable policies in health and occupational safety, which cannot preclude the dentistry approach.

ASSUNTO(S)

epidemiology occupational health self-medication emergency relief oral health saúde bucal saúde ocupacional automedicação socorro de urgência epidemiologia

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