Knowledge and attitude of house officers regarding rubber dam use

ABSTRACT

Rubber dam is considered as a standard of care for tooth isolation during dental procedures since long. Rubber dam offers utmost protection to both, the dentist and the patient. The aim of the study was to determine the knowledge and attitude of house officers in regard to placement and usage of rubber dam, identifying the problems encountered in its use. A descriptive cross sectional study was conducted from August to September 2017 in seven dental hospitals in Rawalpindi/Islamabad. Using the convenience sampling technique the questionnaire was distributed among the house officers of all the hospitals. Data was entered and analyzed using SPSS version 22.0.The overall response rate from all the seven hospitals was 71%. A total of 220 house officers participated in the study.90% of house officers believed that rubber dam improves vision during restorative or endodontic procedure, 83.2% thought that it improves access to the tooth, 96.8% knew that it improves isolation and 86.4% believed that the procedures performed under rubber dam are more successful in terms of their longevity and clinical standards.51.4% of the house officers used rubber dam in restorative and endodontic procedures sometimes while 45% did not use rubber dam and only 3.6% always used rubber dam in the endodontic and restorative procedures. The major causes of not using rubber dam in clinical practice by the house officers were extra time required for the rubber dam placement, difficult placement procedure and lack of adequate training. This study shows that greater emphasis should be placed on advantages of using rubber dam in clinical dentistry and continuing education for updating knowledge about rubber dam is required