Diagnosis and prognosis of oral cancer: accessibility to clinical dental examination

Abstract

The objective of this study will be to evaluate scheduling delay and its influence of the professional assigning the appointment (general dentist and receptionist / dental assistant). It will be carried out a descriptive, cross-sectional study. Two hypothetical situations will be evaluated as regard to time to the appointment assignment: a) 65 years-old male, smoker (40 cigarettes / day) who will describe painful ulcerated lesion on the tongue of more than 20 days evolution; b) 60 years-old male, requesting prosthetic treatment. Public, private and health insurance offices will be assessed in the city of São Paulo. Non-probabilistic sample of one-hundred dental offices will be selected in each category (out of 396 public, 3234 private and 2015 health insurance offices) and for each clinical situation. The information for the study was based on telephone conversations, simulating two standardized patients following the prepared script described earlier. Each dental office will be called twice on the same day, with a two hours interval between the first and the second call. Data will be initially presented through media, standard deviation and percentage. Statistical data will be assessed using the SPSS 10.0 (5% of significance). (AU)