Teaching of bioethics in dental graduate programs in Brazil

In the field of human research, researchers are faced with unexpected moral dilemmas, as a result of the development of technologies applied to health. Due to the great importance of this issue, our objective was to evaluate bioethics instruction in the education of researchers in Brazilian graduate programs in dentistry. Eighty-seven graduate programs in dentistry, recognized by CAPES (Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel) were evaluated in this study. Data were extracted independently by two researchers from the CAPES website, and from the websites of the graduate programs, directly or via links to the programs available at the CAPES website. Forty-eight out of 87 programs had an ethics/bioethics course as part of their curricula. Of the graduation programs graded 5, 6 or 7 by CAPES, 38% included bioethics courses, while 62% of the programs graded 3 or 4 by CAPES had bioethics courses as part of their curricula. These findings are an alert to those involved in dental research education, as they showed that, although resolution 196/96 by the National Council of Health regulating human research in Brazil was published ten years ago, bioethics instruction in Brazilian graduate programs in dentistry is still at an incipient stage. This situation indicates a need for ethics pedagogy in the education of young researchers.