Autopercepción del conocimiento de disfagia por profesionales de la salud oral

Abstract

Introduction: dysphagia is the alteration in swallowing mechanisms that coexists with multiple diseases and conditions. The broad knowledge of this alteration will generate better diagnoses and treatments for the improvement of the quality of life of these patients. Although this alteration could be common domain by specialists in the area of health, mainly oral, there is no recent information on the level of knowledge about dysphagia in dental personnel. Objective: to determine the level of knowledge about dysphagia in a group of oral health professionals from Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua. Material and methods: a descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out in a group of 241 dentists (social service intern, general dentists, periodontists, endodontists, rehabilitators, pediatric dentists and orthodontists) through a survey, the reagents used were on knowledge of dysphagia, diagnostic methods, signs and symptoms, treatment and complications. Results: half of the surveyed population reported knowing swallowing disorders (64.7%). In contrast, when using the term "dysphagia" the posture of knowledge decreased considerably (40.7%). Finally, the lowest values in the survey were found in the lack of knowledge about identification of signs and symptoms of dysphagia (36.1%), diagnostic methods (20.7%), treatments (18.7%) and complications (23.2%). Conclusion: there is a low knowledge of self-perceived swallowing disorders by dentists, which suggests the search for the factors that cause the lack of knowledge of dental professionals.