A importância da Medicina Dentária nas situações de violência doméstica

• Author(s): Silva, Maria Helena Oliveira Vales da
• Date: 2011
• Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/10216/22417
• Origin: Repositório Aberto da Universidade do Porto
• Subject(s): Estatística; Statistics; Porto
• Document Type: Master thesis
• Language: Portuguese

Description

Domestic violence transcends age, race, gender, culture, social-economical status and sexuality. It is a phenomenon of significant extent and intensity, involving multiple forms of violence (physical, sexual, psychological). The process unleashing domestic violence may evolve from words, a push, a shove or a slap in the face, escalating towards a pattern of violence. What we know for sure is that victims become stigmatized, experiencing solitude, rage, anguish, disappointment and bitterness. It was traditionally thought of as a family problem, so that healthcare services, formal control authorities and social services had doubts as to how to intervene. Nowadays, it s a problem integrating the whole of social and political concern, which contributed to a change in the dominant attitude towards this phenomenon, as well as the attitudes and position of healthcare professionals, who are frequently the first to tend to the victims by providing the necessary healthcare, guiding them and cooperating with police and judicial authorities by denouncing and supplying evidence. Victims of domestic violence do not present a specific profile, so detection must be universal in nature and it is necessary to establish individualized therapeutic plans. There is no unique answer to all the people who live with this kind of violence. Healthcare professionals may collaborate through the knowledge of community resources towards the solution of these people s needs, as well as through in-depth study of this theme. Having found that the most frequent injuries sustained in physically abusive contexts occur in the spectre of Dentistry s observation and intervention: head, face and neck, we conducted a study pertaining to understand the relevance and the relation of Dentistry to the complexity of this problem and to the dimension of the domestic violence theme. Thus, this study aimed at assessing the quantification of the typology of injuries and the distribution of their location by anatomical region. With this purpose, we consulted the records of medical examiner s reports for the domestic violence related assessments conducted in the Medical Legal Clinic of the Oporto Delegation of the National Institute of Legal Medicine, including those cases featuring sexual abuse. 12 The descriptive analysis conducted on the distribution of the injuries location and their typology was mostly focused in regions related to Dentistry and of the Jaw-Facial Group. The social-demographic characterization of our population shows a greater incidence of victims in women (82%), mostly middle-aged, with little professional qualifications or no active profession (54.3%), in which cases the most frequent offender is the husband (46.1%). In the elderly sector of the population, this phenomenon is of little significance above the 80 year old age group. Dental injuries are more present in women with low-qualification professions, the most frequent being the loss of a dental piece (82.1%), in the anterior-superior region. Those regions showing the most injuries were the superior limbs (39.5%), the face (31.9%), followed by the head (19.8%), torso (17.6%), lower limbs (16.8%) and neck (12.5%). The most frequent types of injuries are bruises, lacerations, haematoma and oedema. The greatest incidence of injuries sustained in physically abusive contexts occurs in the spectre of Dentistry s observation and intervention, affecting the head (19.8%), face (31.9%) and neck (12.5%), thus emphasizing the relevance of Dentistry s role. It matters, to point out the actuation that these professionals will be able to have, either in relation to the prevention, or to the intervention. To stimulate next to these professionals in the maximum of information and sensitization on this problematic one, constructing a Teaching of the medical, legal and social responsibility and to promote a bigger capacity intervention of the professionals of Dental medicine.