Impact evaluation of the discipline of gerodontology on undergraduate students regarding the concept of Ageism.

• Grant number: 23/03626-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: June 01, 2023
• End date: May 31, 2024
• Field of knowledge: Health Sciences - Dentistry
• Principal Investigator: Maria Aparecida Neves Jardini
• Grantee: Ana Gabriela Logatto de Oliveira
• Host Institution: Instituto de Ciência e Tecnologia (ICT). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de São José dos Campos. São José dos Campos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

It is known that the dental approach towards the older adult patient is complex and must be contemplated in a specific way within universities in order for students to develop critical thinking for a specialized service to this public. Despite Brazil being the first country to recognize Gerodontology as a specialty, there is a gap in training dentistry students to do dental care concerning older adults in a specialized way and thus, during service, it is observed the increase of social prejudice and discriminatory practices against elderly, recognized as Ageism in Brazil. Thereafter, this project aims to evaluate the impact of the Gerodontology discipline on undergraduate students regarding Ageism as a means to reinforce the necessity of implementing this discipline on Dentistry courses that still do not offer such as a mandatory discipline. The evaluation will be performed by means of two questionnaires. The first questionnaire will be created by the research authors and the second one will be "Ageism Scale Dental Students'' (ASDS) translated and validated in Portuguese, involving all superior educational institutions that contain Gerodontology in the workload curriculum of Dentistry courses on Vale do Paraíba. The results will be submitted to statistical analyses and the significance level adopted to all comparisons will be p d0,05.