Percepção dos estudantes de odontologia sobre a língua brasileira de sinais – LIBRAS e a atenção à saúde das pessoas surdas

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate the perception of students from the Faculty of Dentistry from Federal University of Alagoas (FOUFAL) about the Brazilian Sign Language - LIBRAS and health care for deaf people. Materials and Methods: It’s about a qualitative research with a descriptive-exploratory approach, which was applied an online semistructured questionnaire to 17 students in the last academic period. The answers were analyzed and discussed using Laurence Bardin's content analysis technique. Results: From the students surveyed, eleven reported not knowing any deaf people, while six claimed to have contact with a deaf person in their daily routines. Although all students confirm that they know what LIBRAS is, there was a divergence of concepts in the statements reported. Furthermore, they reported that the feelings that best expresses their reaction to seeing a deaf patient in need of healthcare would be worry, insecurity, fear, despair, impotence, etc. Conclusion: In brief, the students from FOUFAL in the academic period of 2022.1 are not prepared to take care of deaf people fulfilling the law 10.436 from 2002, which is regulated by decree 5.626 from 2005. Besides, the students were never encouraged by the academic unit themself to learn about health care for the deaf community, so they proposed to insert LIBRAS as an obligatory subject in the pedagogical project of FOUFAL.