Compliance with the use of personal protective equipment among dentists working at the royal medical services

Abstract EN

Objective: The assessment of compliance with using personal protective equipment among a group of military dentists.

Methods: A self-administered questionnaire was distributed to a total of 100 military dentists.

The questionnaire comprised of two parts.

The first included five general questions related to the duration of dental experience, gender, professional rank, frequency of recording medical history of patients, in addition to the availability of infection control policy in their departments.

The second part was further subdivided into four sections concerned with the use of different personal protective equipment including masks, white coat, gloves and protective glasses.

Results: Of the total 100 questionnaires, the response rate was 87%.

The majority of the dentists were male general practitioners.

Only 57 (65.5%) of them recorded the medical history routinely and only 12 (13.7%) had an infection control policy in their department.

The majority of the above mentioned dentists (94.2%) always wore gloves but only 81.6% of them changed their gloves after each patient.

About 67.8% of the dentists always wore masks while treating their patients but only 10.3% of them changed the mask after each patient.

Most of the dentists (97.7%) wore white coats and approximately half of them (50.57%) never used eyeglasses or protective face shields.

Conclusion: Military dentists show good compliance with the use of personal protective equipment; however, some dentists do not utilize the full range of infection control procedures.

The development of an infection control manual, in addition to continuous education with adequate supplies of personal protective equipment are necessary to reduce the risk of cross infection in dental clinics.