Discrimination and dental students: What is the reality in Brazilian institutions?

Abstract

Introduction: This study aimed to evaluate whether there is discrimination in the dental educational environment, assess the main reasons for the discriminatory events, and if there is an association between discriminatory episodes and sociodemographic characteristics of undergraduate dental students.

Materials and methods: This observational cross-sectional study was conducted with a self-administered questionnaire to students enrolled in three Brazilian dental schools. Questions included sociodemographic characteristics and the occurrence of discriminatory episodes in the dental academic environment. Descriptive analysis was performed in RStudio 1.3 (R Core Team, RStudio, Inc., Boston, USA) software and the associations were tested using Pearson's chi-square test, considering 95% confidence intervals.

Results: A total of 732 dental students were included, with a response rate of 70.2%. The vast majority of students were female (66.9%), with white/yellow skin colour (67.9%), and with a mean age of 22.6 (SD 4.1) years. Sixth-eight percent of students reported having experienced some discrimination in the academic environment and most reported feeling uncomfortable with the episode. The main reasons to have been discriminated against raised by students were specific behaviour/habit, have specific moral, ethical, and aesthetic values, gender, and socioeconomic status or social class. The occurrence of discriminatory episodes was associated with female gender (p = .05), non-heterosexual sexual orientation (p < .001), studying in public institutions (p < .001), receiving an institutional scholarship (p = .018), and being in the final undergraduate cycle (p < .001).

Conclusion: The occurrence of discriminatory episodes was common in Brazilian dental higher education. Discriminatory situations generate traumas and psychological marks, causing a loss of diversity within the academic environment that leads to loss of productivity, creativity, and innovation. Thus, strong institutional policies against discrimination are crucial to create a healthy dental academic environment.

Keywords: dental education; discrimination; health education; social discrimination.