Knowledge of the acupuncture among users of an emergency dental section of a public health service in São Paulo, Brazil

In 1984 the World Health Organization (WHO) suggested the use of the Acupuncture as a complementary therapy, however, only in 2006 through the ordinance 971 (03/05/2006), this therapy was regulated by Ministry of Health in Brazil. Ever since, the professional exercise of the Acupuncture in this country has been focus of great debates. It is known that the use of the Acupuncture can generate positive impact in the individuals' health, enlarging promotion alternatives and maintenance of the same. This exploratory study aimed to verify the knowledge in Acupuncture among users of an emergency dental section - São Paulo/Brazil - in the period of November of 2005 until February of 2006. The sample was composed of 526 women with age between 18 and 95 years old and 433 men with age between 18 and 91 years old, totaling 959 individuals that answered to 02 specific questions on knowledge about Acupuncture: “Have you already been heard about Acupuncture?” and “Have you already been treated with acupuncture?”. The tabulation of the data was executed through spreadsheets and submitted to the descriptive statistical analysis. It was observed that the majority of the sample have never heard about  Acupuncture and only 29% affirmed that they treaty some problem of health through the use of Acupuncture, most of them (62%) were women with age between 18 and 54 years old. It is concluded that the majority of the users of this emergency dental section ignores what is the Acupuncture and therefore they are not taking the benefitting of that complementary therapy, whose larger indication is the handling of the pain. It is suggested that educational processes allied to Acupuncture’s techniques be utilized by the population, publishing the impact of this therapy in the improvement of the life quality, contributing for the diffusion of this millenarian practice.