The's Dentados: a funny and education aid in the waiting room of the Dental Clinic

Abstract

The aim of the project The’s Dentados is to provide recreational activities to patients (children, adolescents, and adults), companions, and families in waiting rooms of dental clinics, with the aim of creating a more humane, informative, and relaxed environment for treatment. The project concerns the development of a new attitude to dental care, which the patient commonly associates with something painful and unpleasant. The RIR method is used as a basis: Relax - calming the patient prior to attendance, transforming the waiting room into a more pleasant space; Inform - educating the patient regarding methods of oral hygiene and any other pertinent aspect of dentistry; and Respect - understanding that each patient is different. The project involves graduate and postgraduate students who develop activities involving parodies, jokes, rehearsed choreography, gifts (toothbrush, floss, and toothpaste), satires of commonplace procedures for dental treatment, guidelines on oral hygiene, and other ways of interacting with the patient. Contact with the population enables proper diagnosis of fears and expectations, facilitating teaching and research. These data provide the basis for future research that is directly related to the needs of the community. Thus, combining the three aspects of the University, namely teaching, research, and extension, students of the project become more skilled in interaction with patients, and attentive to the needs and reality of the community.