Perfil sociodemográfico de manicures atuantes na região oeste do Paraná : aspectos da formação profissional e biossegurança Sociodemographic profile of manicures operating in western Paraná : aspects of professional training and biosafety

Background and Objectives: The emergence and development of professional manicures are and related to the development of aesthetics and podiatry, combined with the economic development of the country and the media, which lead individuals to care about their body, requiring a quantitative growth of professionals who can meet this demand, including manicures. However, this growth has not accompanied the proper professional qualification, exposing workers and the clientele served to risks inherent to the activities developed. The objective of this study was to evaluate the sociodemographic profile of professional manicures, focusing on aspects such as profesARTIGO ORIGINAL Perfil sociodemográfico de manicures atuantes na região oeste do Paraná: aspectos da formação profissional e biossegurança Sociodemographic profile of manicures operating in western Paraná: aspects of professional training and biosafety Perfil sociodemográfico de manicures actuantes en la región oeste de Paraná: aspectos de la formación profesional y bioseguridad Rev. Epidemiol. Controle Infecç. Santa Cruz do Sul, 2019 Jan-Mar;9(1):21-26. [ISSN 2238-3360] Vanessa Bordin.1 http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2870-0079 Débora Cristina Ignácio Alves,1 http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6892-366X Maristela Salete Maraschin,1 http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2184-5056 Leda Aparecida Vanelli Nabuco de Gouvêa,1 http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6641-7114 1Universidade Estadual do Oeste do Paraná, Cascavel, PR, Brasil. https://doi.org/10.17058/reci.v9i1.11762 Recebido em: 02/03/2018 Aceito em: 04/09/2018 Disponível online: 17/01/2019 Autor Correspondente: Vanessa Bordin vanessa.bordin@hotmail.com Rua Aimorés, no 187, apto no 04, Bairro Santo Onofre, Cascavel/PR, Brasil. CEP: 85806330


INTRODUCTION
The emergence and development of professional manicures is directly related to the development of aesthetics and podiatry, with the exacerbated demand for aesthetic procedures, thus emphasizing the importance of the beauty attribute and the possibility for all to improve their physical appearance or to conform to standards of body aesthetics. 1 The country's economic development and the media have influenced the increased income, bringing about with it standards image and beauty, reaching all social strata, age groups, and both genders. Such condition has led individuals to be concerned about quality of life, mainly related to body care, thus requiring an increased number of professionals able to meet this demand, including manicures and pedicures. 2,3 However, such growth has not been accompanied by proper professional qualification, exposing workers and clientele to risks inherent to the activities developed. 4 When Beauty and Aesthetics professionals do not know and/or do not adhere to good safety practices, there is an increased chance of exposing themselves to microorganisms through direct or indirect contact, either through the cutaneousmucosal, cutaneous or percutaneous route, such as, for instance, through skin-which suffers abrasions, scaling and perforations; ou through the ocular mucous, stroked by fragments of nails. 5,6 Manicures were recognized as professionals only from a bill project sanctioned on January 18, 2012, allowing professionals in the area to organize themselves to regulate the profession-professionals who carry out hygiene activities and aesthetic and corporal beautification of individuals, and who may be exposed to the risk of microbial transmission when they are unaware and do not adhere to biosafety measures. 7 Despite the professional recognition, other obstacles have arisen and have been faced by these professionals until the present day, in which we can highlight: 5 The absence of a formal employment contract (signed work permit), causing professionals to provide services by their own and receive proportionally on what they produce. Some of them work only on days of greater customer demand, being responsible for the acquisition of their own articles and products, which results in a lower income for these professionals when compared to those who work in industries, with a work contract duly signed and with labor rights ensured.
It should also be noted that this category, in most cases, has few materials to perform the procedures, which must be previously cleaned, disinfected and sterilized, and the use of these instruments may occur in more than one client, unaware of the essential need to perform of the aforementioned processes to ensure the safety of customers and of themselves. 5 The importance of beauty as a discriminatory element can be analyzed both from the point of view of the labor market as of the capital involved in the production of inputs required to provide beauty services. 6,7 As an economic variable with a strong impact on the labor market, it seeks to unravel the mechanisms of segregation or differential of wages between workers, the new profile of labor in the provision of these services and in industries producing inputs, and the expansion of workforce in this segment. 8 As for capital, the requirement of a good appearance requires expenditures on services and products that currently move large volumes of capital. The relevance of these investment is expressed in the emergence of new products, in response to the demand generated by the reasons already mentioned. Worldwide, the cosmetics and perfumery industry carries out billion-dollar business and occupies millions of people and, in Brazil, it has experienced great growth in recent years. 1 Another aspect to be considered is that professionals are not required to present a diploma of any nature, whether in technical, vocational or higher education, that certifies their training and qualification in the area. According to the Brazilian Classification of Occupations (CBO) of the Ministry of Labor, for these professionals to work it is necessary, at least, incomplete elementary education, qualification course and up to a year of professional experience. 2 The profession regulation was fundamental not only to value these workers, but also to require formal qualification in educational institutions, with a minimum curriculum for the effective exercise of the profession. 9 Finally, due to the increasing insertion of women in the labor market, their income has been increasing and, consequently, also their participation in the family budget. From the 1970s, the rate of participation of Brazilian women in the Economically Active Population (PEA) was only 18%, rising to 40.1% in 2001 and reaching the proportion of just under 50.0% in 2009. This was one of the factors that caused the increased consumption of beauty and aesthetics services in the country since the 1990s, also considering that, between 2001 and 2009, the percentage of Brazilian families headed by women increased from approximately 27.0% to 35.0%. 10,11 In view of the above, the realization of this study intends, after evaluating the sociodemographic profile of professional manicures, to demonstrate the need for new comparative studies with the findings presented here, which show the performance of these professionals in Brazil and especially in the southern region of the country, where popular adherence to beauty practices involves health risks to the clientele and workers, mainly related to professional training and biosafety. In addition, the theme is of social relevance because it involves workers and clientele of various age groups, economic class and both sexes. 12 Based on this assumption, the goal of this research was to evaluate the sociodemographic profile of professional manicures, focusing on aspects of professional training and biosafety.

METHODS
This is a descriptive, cross-sectional and prospective study, with a field study design and quantitative data analysis. The research was developed in beauty salons located in western Paraná. The population was composed of manicures working in these establishments; we worked with a total sample of access, consisting of 61 beauty establishments.
The study included professionals aged 18 years and over, who voluntarily agreed to participate in the study after clarification and signing the Informed Consent Form (ICF). The beauty centers visited more than three times due to being closed, as well as establishments that only worked in the hairdresser and barber branches, were excluded from the study.
For data collection, a semi-structured questionnaire containing open and closed questions was elaborated ─ some of which were partially extracted from Garbaccio's doctoral thesis 2 , with data on the establishment, the interviewee, the work process and on specific knowledge, carried out in an assisted way.
The pilot test of the data collection instrument was conducted in a beauty salon (not included in the sample) and the answers were analyzed to verify the congruence of the questions with the research objectives. Data from the collection instruments were duly tabulated in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, and later synthesized by means of descriptive statistics (absolute frequencies, relative frequencies, averages and standard deviation).
Quantitative variables (age, time of experience in the beauty/aesthetic branch/segment, time working at the beauty salon) were evaluated by descriptive statistics of minimum, maximum, mean, and standard deviation.
Frequencies of response categories were compared to each other by the Chisquare test for adherence, when these variables were classified as nominal qualitative dichotomies. The frequencies of responses of categorical nominal qualitative variables, in turn, were compared using the Chi-square test for k proportions, followed by the Marascuilo follow-up test.
All statistical analyzes were performed in the XLStat2015 program, with the p-value at a significance level of 0.05.

RESULTS
The sample consisted of 61 people, most women (59 -96.72%), with education level from incomplete to complete middle school (36 -58.91%). Usually, they do not work in another salon (58 -95.08%) and have a monthly income of up to a minimum wage (47 -77.04%) ( Table 1).
Regarding professional training in the area, 52 (85.24%) attended face-to-face courses and 16 (26.23%) started their activities on their own initiative. Most did not follow improvement courses in the area in the last 2 years (50 -81.96%), nor did any course related to biosafety (45 -73.77%). Of the 16 (26.23%) interviewees who did some biosafety course, 6 received training in another establishment (37.50%), and 6 (37.50%) in a technical school (Table 1). In the evaluation of the time working in the salon, the research showed there were subjects with only one year of employment and others with up to 16 years (SD = 3.70) ( Table 2). Regarding training knowledge, the findings of this research are in line with data from other researches, in which a low level of education can be observed, with illiteracy ranging from 2.2% to 12.0% and the elementary level of schooling varied between 12.3% and 56.7%, in another research involving the same theme. 4,14 Possibly this fact is due to the professions origin, the legal requirement of any technical training or professional qualification to carry out the activity, besides the lack of orientation and monitoring by health agencies. Thus, it is assumed that many of these professionals learn the activity under the guidance of older ones, and this knowledge on the possible impacts to the health of both professional and client is indispensable for their performance. 14 Regarding the question whether the professional works in another beauty salon, the result found was similar to another study, in which 231 (98.3%) did not work in another establishment and 4 (1.7%) reported working in more than one place. 15 As to the monthly income of manicures and pedicures, this study indicated that most interviewees receive up to a minimum wage/month, which, in the period of the research, was about R$ 880.00 (eight hundred and eighty Reais). This is due to the variation according to the clientele served, location of the establishment, reputation, among other attributes. The profit margin of these professionals is between R$ 1,200.00 (one thousand and two hundred Reais), according to the amount charged for each service.
Thus, a broad discussion on the salary of these professionals is necessary, seeking to establish a salary floor, with definition of working days and school training dealing with the specificities of the work they develop, to facilitate the approach and understanding of the current health guidelines in place and necessary for adherence to biosafety measures, ensuring safe practices.
Considering the professional training in the area, the research showed that 52 (85.2%) professionals reported having attended professional in-service courses.
In another study, the participants opted to train themselves through short courses such as nail decoration, porcelain nails, among others. 2 These regular professional courses are intended to provide professional training, aiming to enable individuals to develop practices indispensable to the practice of the profession. 16 In a research already conducted, 155 (66.0%) professionals reported having completed professional training through non-regular/informal courses. 2 This type of training is characterized by not occurring in regular professional schools or courses in the beauty and aesthetics segment, but by kinship relationships, friendships or by means of communication, associations, organizations, societies, among others. 17 We also verified the existence and formation of rapid preparatory courses whose main concern is the technical skill for the cutting and the use of products in the hair and nails, acting almost always as a way of divulging the novelties of the beauty and aesthetics market, and not necessarily in the fundamental training of the profession. 17 The lack of regulated training courses, the small number of training courses for manicures and pedicures, and the informality allow these professionals to perform their functions without proper knowledge so that they can carry out their work safely. 5 In some countries, such as in the United States, beauty professionals need to The lack of training and/or knowledge on biosafety measures contributes to the dissemination of microorganisms and diseases that are often acquired but seldom associated with these environments, in a silent transmission process.
In other studies dealing with the same theme, the predominant age was ≥ 31 years, with an experience time ≤ 10 years and with working time in the visited salon of ≥ 2 years 15 , similar to the findings of this study. 20,21 This research allowed us to disclose the socioeconomic profile of professional manicures, in addition to identifying the activities developed by these professionals, which was not an easy task given the great difficulty of contact with such establishments, mistakenly forwarded addresses, refusals to participate in research due to the fact they were in their work environment and with clients being attended at the same time.
The population's great concern about the good looks of the hands and feet is visible, including nail care. However, due to the various occupations and tasks to be carried out on a day-to-day basis, many people look for manicure/pedicure services, sometimes without paying attention to the hygiene related to the service.
Regarding professional qualification, principles of microbiology, immunology, among others, should be considered, as well as health problems caused by materials used in their daily practice and that are not submitted to adequate sterilization processes, and may compromise the reputation of the establishment and the professional, in addition to causing damages to the clientele.