Profile of orthodontic education in brazilian undergraduate dentistry courses

Abstract

New paradigms of Brazilian dental education involve orthodontics in the context of generalist professional formation, encouraging the recognition of teaching reality of this discipline in undergraduate courses in dentistry. This article discusses the orthodontics discipline in Brazilian dentistry undergraduate courses to identify the number of semesters offered, nomenclature, insertion model, content format and the performance of clinical practice in undergraduate education and its association with characterization variables of the discipline. Electronic questionnaires were sent to 203 dental schools, 55 public and 148 private, registered to the Federal Council of Dentistry in 2013. The questionnaires were answered by 92 teachers of orthodontics, representing 45.3% of the existing dental undergraduate courses in Brazil: 55.4% of which from private and 44.6% public schools. The findings of this research show that orthodontics teaching is present in all undergraduate courses analyzed, is a predominant and integrated subject in pediatric dentistry, addresses the contents in theoretical and practical form both in the laboratory and clinic, and assists children with deciduous and mixed dentition for diagnosis, prevention and interception of malocclusions. Egressed students are able to recognize orthodontic problems and direct these young patients to treatment. The presence of clinical practice was associated with the variables that denote greater investments of higher education institutions in professors, academic credentials and curricular matrix due to the integrality of the contents and course load distribution for the discipline.