Knowledge About Oral Cancer in Older Adults at the Wajay Grandparent's House

Introduction: One of the causes of aging in people is associated with the appearance or increase of stomatological conditions, within them oral cancer is the highest incidence in the elderly population and its prevention plays an important role in primary health care Objective: to determine knowledge about oral cancer in older adults at the Wajay Grandparent's House.

Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study was carried out from February to April 2015 to 45 elderly adults belonging to the Wajay grandparent's home of the polyclinic Dr. Mario Muñoz Monroy, a questionnaire was created by the researcher where the following variables: age , sex, knowledge about cancer risk factors, knowledge about oral self-examination, frequency, signs and symptoms of alarm and where to go if changes are observed, and the level of knowledge about oral cancer of the respondents.

Results: The predominant gender was male (53.8) and the age of 60-74 years (44.4%), most of the geronants had in the knowledge about smoking as a fundamental risk factor (62.2%) more than half of the population does not knowing the Oral Cancer Detection Program (82.2%), only the general level of knowledge was poor (48.8%).

Conclusion: The male group aged 60-74 years predominated and there was a poor level of knowledge about oral cancer in the studied population.