Asif Nazir Ch, Neha Usman, Samera Kiran, Touseef Zahra, Hiba Khalid, Muhammad Usman Akhtar.
Cross infection control in dental institutions.
Pak Oral Dental J Jan ;38(4):419-22.

Cross infection is the transmission of infectious agents among patients and health care professionals in clinical or hospital setup. There are many infectious diseases those can be transmitted in dental environment. This cross sectional study was done to assess the knowledge, attitudes and current cross infection control practices among the dentists in different teaching institutions of Punjab province. All general dental practitioners and dental students in clinical departments in these institutes were asked to complete a questionnaire about cross infection control and the survey was completed in three weeks. Their response about different precautionary measures about cross infection control was noted. A total of 483 were returned out of 500 distributed questionnaires. Response rate of filling and submitting back the proforma was 96.6%. Knowledge of risk of transmission of infection was remarkably good among these dentists. There was a good trend of taking medical history from the patient. The dentists who disinfect the dental unit before seating the next patient were 62.8%. Dental health care professionals who used sterilized dental instruments on every patient were 88.6%. Dental health care professionals are at high risk for cross infection due to daily exposure to saliva, blood, aerosols or possibly contaminated instruments. The current study will contribute towards improving overall cross infection control practices among the dentists while working in clinical set up and will also benefit for prevention of cross infection among the dental health care professionals and the patients.

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