Dental procedures and lawsuits: An overview of the State of Rio de Janeiro

The aim of this article was to carry out a survey of civil responsibility lawsuits involving questioning of dental procedures filed against dentists in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, between 2015 and 2019. The names of dentists registered in the state of Rio de Janeiro were consulted based on the public listing of professionals available on the website of the Federal Council of Dentistry. For the survey of lawsuits, the name of each professional was searched on the website of the Court of Justice of the State of Rio de Janeiro. After reading each lawsuit, information such as the total number of cases involving dentists and the number of cases by specialty were collected. The data were organized in digital spreadsheets and submitted to descriptive statistical analysis. There was a total of 33,497 registered professionals, and 393 processes were found with 415 professionals involved. Implantology (n=216), Endodontics (n=103) and Orthodontics (n=31) procedures were the most questioned in the lawsuits. It can be concluded that there was an increase in the number of lawsuits against dentists in the state of Rio de Janeiro, with Implantology being the specialty sued most often.