Comparative study about the conceptions of health and disease between social science and dentistry students from a public university of Rio de Janeiro State

The purpose of this article was to compare the social representation between dentistry and social sciences students, concerning the process of health and disease, and the conception of health professional position in our society, aiming a contribution to improve dentistry students' social formation. It is a qualitative research and its methodology was based in interviews performed by two researchers with one free association question and five open questions directed to ten first and ten last year students from both graduation courses of a public university. The first year students from both courses said that health and disease was based in the World Health Organization (WHO) concept. The social sciences students showed more engagement about social questions while dentistry's cared more about the individual than the community. Considering that, we can conclude that dentistry students from the last year did not show social sensitivity either worried about Brazilian's population problems, while social sciences students do.