Giving up reporting the aggressor: reports of female victims of domestic violence

The goal of this study is to describe the experience of female victims of domestic violence, who forfeited the lawsuits against their aggressors. The interviews were oriented by the question: What was your experience of forfeiting the denunciation of your aggressor? Three themes emerged from the convergence of the testimonies: time passed from the aggression to the denunciation and then to the forfeiting; the partner, the family, the women's precinct; reflecting about the experience, which described the studied phenomenon. The women expressed ambiguous feelings for their aggressor: affection, anger, humiliation and fear. They recognize that they are dominated and humiliated, but notions of justice and equality between spouses do not appear in the testimonies. Forfeiting can be understood in the context of the reproduction of the traditional family structure, conditioned to economic and social factors. Results highlight implications about the role of the Women's Precinct and the healthcare institutions in the care for women who were victims of domestic violence.

Relations between Depression, Alcohol and Gender in the Metropolitan Region of São Paulo, Brazil

Como parte do projeto GENACIS, este artigo visou estimar a prevalência de depressão em amostra urbana de São Paulo, Brasil, assim como a associação entre depressão e padrão de uso de álcool segundo gênero. Para tanto, foi realizado inquérito epidemiológico com amostra probabilística e por conglomerados, com um total de 2083 adultos. Utilizou-se o CIDI SF para identificação de depressão. A análise estatística utilizou o teste de Rao Scott e regressão logística multivariada. A taxa de resposta foi de 74,9%. Predominaram mulheres (58,8%), menores de 40 anos de idade (52%). A prevalência de depressão foi de 28,3% para as mulheres e 12,7% para os homens. Entre os homens, 61,1% são de bebedores no último ano e a depressão esteve associada ao padrão de consumo de álcool, à maior frequência de binge drinking e à presença de problemas decorrentes do álcool. Entre as mulheres, 69,5% são abstinentes e a depressão se associou à convivência com cônjuge com problemas devidos ao álcool. Os resultados ressaltam que a associação entre depressão e consumo de álcool é distinta entre os gêneros.

Analysis of the ethical aspects of professional confidentiality in dental practice

From the point of view of deontological ethics, privacy is a moral right that patients are entitled to and it is bound to professional confidentiality. Otherwise, the information given by patients to health professionals would not be reliable and a trustable relationship could not be established. The aim of the present study was to assess, by means of questionnaires with open and closed questions, the awareness and attitudes of 100 dentists working in the city of Andradina, São Paulo State, Brazil, with respect to professional confidentiality in dental practice. Most dentists (91.43%) reported to have instructed their assistants on professional confidentiality. However, 44.29% of the interviewees showed to act contradictorily as reported talking about the clinical cases of their patients to their friends or spouses. The great majority of professionals (98.57%) believed that it is important to have classes on Ethics and Bioethics during graduation and, when asked about their knowledge of the penalties imposed for breach of professional confidentiality, only 48.57% of them declared to be aware of it. Only 28.57% of the interviewees affirmed to have exclusive access to the files; 67.14% reported that that files were also accessed by their secretary; 1.43% answered that their spouses also had access, and 2.86% did not answer. From the results of the present survey, it could be observed that, although dentists affirmed to be aware of professional confidentiality, their attitudes did not adhere to ethical and legal requirements. This stand of health professionals has contributed to violate professional ethics and the law itself, bringing problems both to the professional and to the patient.