Impact assessment of educational intervention among private dental practitioners about infection control practices in district Peshawar

ABSTRACT

Cross infections occur frequently in dental health care personnel therefore, to protect themselves and their patients; they have to strictly follow infection control practices. To assess the impact of educational interventions on knowledge and practices of private dental practitioners. Interventional study, done from March 2012 to June 2013 in private practitioners of Peshawar using convenient sampling technique. After acquiring base line data on the practices, pertaining to prevention of cross infection in dental practitioners, educational knowledge intervention was applied to them on same day and repeated after two months. Post intervention data was collected using same questionnaire. The data was analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences [SPSS] version 16.0. A total of 90 dental practitioners were included, of whom 49 [54.4%] were qualified and 41 [45.6%] unqualified. Their overall mean age was 33.77 +/- 8.97 years. The mean age of qualified practitioners was 36.24 +/- 10.40 years. Their pre and post intervention practices showed significant improvement in various practices like; screening of patients prior to procedure [p <0.043], hepatitis B vaccination [p < 0.000], type of gloves used [p < 0.031], hand washing [P < 0.004] separate instrument processing area [p < 0.004], floor cleansing with disinfectant [p < 0.000] and proper ventilation [p <0.021]. The mean age of unqualified practitioners was 30.80 +/- 5.73 years. Their pre and post intervention change in knowledge and practices showed poor compliance to most interventions. Qualified dental practitioners had a positive attitude towards educational infection as compared to unqualified practitioners. Yearly health education certification should be implemented for all health care professional [qualified and unqualified] to keep them abreast with the infection control practices