Perfil do conhecimento de profissionais de saúde sobre a fibrose cística

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Information and knowledge about cystic fibrosis (CF), its diagnosis and treatment still have limitations in Brazil, especially among health professionals, affecting the age of diagnosis and the prognosis of people with CF. OBJECTIVE: To analyze which are the predictive factors for the knowledge of health professionals about CF and to evaluate the knowledge of these professionals. MATERIALS AND METHODS: It consisted of a cross-sectional study, following the direction of Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE). The project was approved by the UFRN Research Ethics Committee, under opinion number 2,628,776. Health professionals from all over Brazil, aged 18 or over and with internet access were included. Participants who did not respond to the questionnaire within the specified period were excluded. Socio-demographic data (gender, age, profession, knowledge about CF, training time and whether or not it treated patients with CF) and CF knowledge were evaluated using the Brazilian version of the Cystic Fibrosis Knowledge Scale (CFKS). Data were analyzed using SPSS software, version 22.0 for Windows (IBM Corporation, Armonk, NY, USA), with a significance level of 5%. The KolmogorovSmirnov test was used to verify the normality of the researched data. To assess the relationship between numerical variables and the CFKS score, the Pearson test was used. For the categorical variables and the CFKS score, the student's t test was used. RESULTS: The sample consisted of 242 participants, 202 (83.47%) female, with a mean age of 30±7.13 years, 147 of whom were physiotherapists (60.7%). The average training time of these professionals was 6.8±6.74 years. Regarding CF knowledge, the average CFKS total score was 59.34±17.28. There was no difference between sex and knowledge of CF (p=0.887) and having or not assisting people with CF (p=0.084). The correlation between CF knowledge and time since graduation was very weak and not significant (r=0.158; p=0.014), similar to the correlation between CF knowledge and age (r=0.207; p=0.001). The sample is not normal. CONCLUSION: Based on the results of this study, it was possible to identify that gender and having treated or not people with CF do not interfere with the knowledge of Brazilian health professionals. However, the older the professionals and the time since graduation, the greater the professional's knowledge.