Assessment of Infection Control Knowledge, Attitudes and Self-Reported Compliance Among Dental Interns in Private Dental College

Ahmed, Anam; Mannan, Huda

doi:10.5281/zenodo.17736405

Published January 2021 | Version v1

Journal article Open

Assessment of Infection Control Knowledge, Attitudes and Self-Reported Compliance Among Dental Interns in Private Dental College

1. Associate Professor (CC), Department of Dental Public Health, University Dental College & Hospital, Dhaka, Bangladesh.
2. Assistant Professor, Department of Pediatric Dentistry, University Dental College & Hospital, Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Contributors

Contact person:

Ahmed, Anam¹

1. Associate Professor (CC), Department of Dental Public Health, University Dental College & Hospital, Dhaka, Bangladesh. Email: dph.udc@gmail.com

Abstarct

Background: Dental professionals experience a lot of occupational hazards due to blood-borne pathogens and body fluids. Dental interns face higher risks in patient care delivery, while their infection control behavior is still in development. The results of occupational safety are a direct result of the knowledge, attitudes, and practices regarding infection control. The aim of this study was to assess the knowledge, attitude and self-perceived compliance of dental interns on infection control at a private dental college in Bangladesh to find the gap between knowledge and practice.
Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive research study was conducted with 120 undergraduate dental interns from the four cohorts over a period of 1.5 years by convenient sampling method in a private dental college of Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Information was obtained using a structured, self-administered questionnaire developed by the investigators. The questionnaire consisted of five parts, i.e. the demographic characteristics, general infection control knowledge (8 items), sterilization knowledge (9 items), attitudes (8 items on a 5-point Likert scale), and self-reported practices (7 items on frequency scales). The descriptive statistics were calculated using SPSS version 22.
Results: Overall mean age of the participants was 24.04 ± 0.94 years, while 61.7% participants were females and 94.2% participants were fully vaccinated against Hepatitis B. The understanding of the standard precautions was at 91.7% correct and the hand hygiene was at 90.8% correct. Nonetheless, only 62.5% knew about the role of serology test after vaccination, whereas only 34.2% know the shelf-life guidelines for sterile materials. Most respondents (85.8%) strongly agreed that infection control is important for the safety of the patient. Most of the respondents claim that they always use gloves (96.7%), and practice hand hygiene (89.2%) for infection prevention. However, compliance to injury reporting was the lowest (39.2%) and eye protection (35.8%). Only 54.2% of respondents reported the practice of sterilization verification before use to be always.
Conclusion: Dental interns have adequate knowledge regarding the standard principles of infection control but there is a lot of gap between knowledge and practices. There is a gap between what is known and what is being practiced. This means more practical training, supporting structures and supervision is needed for better compliance. Interventions that address barriers to the implementation of practices are needed to ensure the safety of the occupational and risk of transmission.