Geotherapy: perceptions and use in an academic community

Abstract

Introduction: Geotherapy is a widely used therapeutic resource based on mud/clay. Objective: We aimed to map perceptions and uses of Geotherapy in an academic community (students, lecturers and administrative staff) from a university campus. Method: Cross-sectional exploratory study, quali-quantitative, conducted at the ‘Universidade Federal do Paraná - Setor Litoral’, Matinhos, Paraná´s coast. A questionnaire was administered, composed by: a) objective questions about the topic and previous experiences, later tabulated into histograms, using descriptive statistics; b) open questions and reports of subjective experiences on the use of geotherapy, whose emergent categories were analyzed thematically. Results: From a total amount of 134 participants, 47% know the term ‘Geotherapy’, however, when the term ‘therapeutic clay’ is used, there´s a jump to 76% who know its use in health. About 33% of the academic community has already used Geotherapy. From this group, 43% used it for aesthetic or dermatological purposes; face was the body predominant part (61%) and 48 % used it more than three times. The most used colors were white and brown while red and yellow were the least. Among the group which never used (67%), it was also significant (91%) the number of people who reported that they would use it, if they had the opportunity for it. Conclusions: The study showed that a large part of this university community recognizes the use of clay in health, but few recognize the term Geotherapy. These observations indicate a necessity to expand the dissemination of this therapy, including its benefits to population, enhancing their knowledge and promoting an increase on its utilization.