Iftikhar Akbar, Fayyaz Alam, Beenish Qureshi, Mohammed Abulhamid Almayouf.
The attitude of undergraduate dental students towards the use of rubber dam.
Pak Oral Dental J Jan ;37(4):622-7.

Rubber dam is the most widely used technique for isolation in operative dentistry and endodontics. Despite of its advantages some students may not be convinced of its use. The aim of the present study was to determine the attitude of students regarding rubber dam application, in College of Dentistry, Aljouf University, Saudi Arabia. A structured questionnaire-based survey was conducted on senior dental students. The questionnaire contained different aspects of rubber dam usage, advantages and disadvantages, points of difficulty regarding rubber dam application, agreement and disagreement of the participants towards statements about rubber dam. Seventy three questionnaires were collected out of one hundred distributed questionnaires. The results were statistically analyzed by SPSS software version 21. Most of the students (65%) considered selection of the clamp and its adaptation as the most difficult phase. Most of the participants (70%) agreed that rubber dam improves the success rate. Majority (76%) of the students agreed that rubber dam posed difficulty in taking radiographs while 68% believed that rubber dam application extends the treatment period. Most of the students (66%) indicated that they used rubber dam in dental clinics because it is a helpful tool. The participants have shown a positive response towards rubber dam use in endodontic treatment but were less convinced in amalgam and composite restorations. 34% of the participants think they will not use it in future due to difficulty during application.

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