Iranian Dental Students’ Knowledge of and Attitudes Towards HIV/AIDS Patients

Abstract

Dental treatment procedures frequently involve blood and saliva that may be contaminated with HIV. The purpose of this cross-sectional survey was to assess Iranian dental students' knowledge of and attitudes towards HIV/AIDS patients. In 2008, a fifty-three-item self-administered questionnaire was conducted on all 750 dental students who participated in the 10 th Dental Student Congress in Isfahan, Iran. The overall response rate to the questionnaire was 60.7 percent. The total mean knowledge and attitudes scores were 82.1 percent (excellent) and 57.4 percent (negative), respectively. There were no significant differences in the knowledge or attitude scores between male and female students. A majority of the students were aware of the association between HIV and oral candidiasis (98.1 percent), major aphthous (95.8 percent), and Kaposi's sarcoma (93.8 percent). Although a majority of the students had excellent knowledge (78.4 percent), only 1 percent had professional attitudes about treating patients

Factors related to the willingness of Palestinian dentists to treat patients with blood-borne diseases

“…This finding might indicate the misconception of the disease pathogenicity or the social stigma associated with HIV‐infected people. These results conform to dentists’ attitude towards patients with HIV/AIDS in published reports from other regions in the world. In a similar study in Jordan, a country that is considered to be the closest in culture and beliefs to Palestine, 45% of the respondent dentists were willing to treat HBV‐infected patients compared with 15% who agreed to provide care for HIV‐infected patients.…”

“…In contrast, increasing the awareness of dental professionals about how to deal with patients with blood‐borne diseases and improving infection‐control measures at dental clinics might play a more positive role in improving dentists’ attitude and confidence towards treating those patients. The literature showed that high awareness of the disease process and the measures that minimise the risk of transmission increases dentists’ willingness to treat those patients.…”

Evaluation of oral care protocols practice by professionals towards HIV/AIDS individuals

“…Moreover, most participants said that Kaposi's sarcoma (89.5% of women and 90% of men) and oral candidiasis (85.2% of women and 82.5% of men) are oral signs of HIV/ AIDS. Those diseases seem to be the most known by dentists as related to HIV/ AIDS, as it was demonstrate by other studies [12,20,21]. In Oliveira et al [20], 92.5% e 90.3% of participants said that Kaposi's sarcoma and oral candidiasis, respectively, are oral manifestations of HIV/ AIDS.…”

“…for necrotizing ulcerative gingivitis, 85% for hairy leukoplakia, 81% for Herpes zoster and major aphthous and 75% for salivary gland infection. In Sadeghi and Hakimi [12] work, several lesions were pointed out as associated to HIV/ AIDS, such as oral candidiasis (98%), Kaposi's sarcoma (94%), necrotizing ulcerative gingivitis (91%), severe periodontitis (88%), cytomegalovirus (87,6%), gingivitis (83%), xerostomia (83%), hairy leukoplakia (82%), salivary gland infection (81%), herpes zoster (79%), herpes simplex (77%) and lichen planus (54%). Interestingly, despite oral herpes simplex being an oral pathognomonic marker of HIV, current results showed a low rate of positive answers relating these lesions to HIV+.…”

“…Furthermore, during dental treatment, there is a considerable risk of cross-contamination [12]. Crossinfection may occur by accident with cutting or puncture contaminated material, for example, needle perforation [13].…”