• de LiraClaudio Andre BarbosaCAB0000-0001-5749-6877BSc, PhD. Associate Professor, Faculdade de Educação Física e Dança (FEFD), Universidade Federal de Goiás (UFG), Goiânia (GO), Brazil., Douglas Assis Teles Santos, Ricardo Borges Viana, Juliana Moreira Guimarães, Jéssica Nathalia Soares Oliveira, Bolivar Saldanha Sousa, Marcos Gonçalves de Santana, Rodrigo Luiz Vancini, Marília Santos Andrade, Pantelis Nikolaidis, Thomas Rosemann, and Beat Knechtle.
• BSc, PhD. Associate Professor, Faculdade de Educação Física e Dança (FEFD), Universidade Federal de Goiás (UFG), Goiânia (GO), Brazil.
• Sao Paulo Med J. 2021 Aug 1; 139 (5): 464-475.

BackgroundPostpoliomyelitis syndrome is a clinical condition that can affect poliomyelitis survivors.ObjectiveOur aim was to evaluate knowledge of poliomyelitis and postpoliomyelitis syndrome among Brazilian healthcare professionals.Design And SettingCross-sectional study conducted at a Brazilian public higher education institution located in the state of Goiás.MethodsThe participants (n = 578) were Brazilian physicians, physical therapists, nurses, nutritionists and psychologists. A self-administered questionnaire (30 questions) was designed to probe knowledge about poliomyelitis and postpoliomyelitis syndrome. From the questionnaire, we created a structured test to objectively evaluate the knowledge of these professionals. The test was composed of 20 questions and was scored over a range from 0 (totally ill-informed) to 20 (totally well-informed).ResultsIn general, the physicians, physical therapists and nurses demonstrated better understanding of poliomyelitis and postpoliomyelitis syndrome. The healthcare professionals who had received previous information about poliomyelitis and postpoliomyelitis syndrome had significantly higher scores than those who had never received information (P < 0.001). On average, this difference was approximately 28.6%.ConclusionsThe findings from the present study indicate that there is a critical need for improvement of knowledge about postpoliomyelitis syndrome among Brazilian healthcare professionals. The services provided by these professionals may therefore become compromised. Furthermore, public healthcare initiatives should be implemented to improve knowledge among healthcare professionals.

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