Awareness and Practices of Alginate Disinfection Protocol Among Dental Practitioners of Karachi City

Abstract

Objective: To determine the awareness and practices about disinfection of alginate impression among dental practitioners of Karachi city. Study Design and Setting: This cross-sectional study was conducted at a private sector teaching hospital and private clinics, both located in Hamdard University Dental Hospital, Karachi from the period of April, 2017 to April, 2019. Methodology: A Questionnaire was designed by subject specialist in light of Australian Dental Association guidelines for cross infection prevention and disinfection for dental offices and laboratory. The questionnaire comprised of demographic details including age, gender, years of clinical experience; awareness of disinfection protocols such as self-protection precautionary measures while pouring the alginate impressions; practices of disinfection in the Laboratory; Practice of personal protection and details regarding the attendance of CDE (Continuing Dental Educations) seminars. The data was analyzed on Statistical Package for Social Sciences SPSS version 20. Results: Among total subjects of 186, 78(41.9%) male and 108 (58.06%) female participants were included in this study. In present study the awareness of disinfection of alginate was observed in 171(91.8%) subjects while 15(8.2%) were not up to the mark. Regarding precautionary measures n=142 (83.0%) participants used gloves,. Considering the preferred method and duration of disinfection 56.4% used running tap water for gross cleaning of impression for 5 minutes while 43.6% marked spraying with 2% sodium hypochlorite as preferred disinfection method. Conclusion: majority of the participants of this study were aware regarding the ADA guidelines of disinfecting the alginate impressions while there was a dearth of practice observed for disinfecting the alginate impressions and were not used the prescribed disinfectant to disinfect the dental impressions