Abstract
Objectives : The purpose of this study was to examine the knowledge of dental hygienists on infection control in dental office and their attitude toward that in a bid to provide some information on ways of enhancing the level of infection control in dental office. Methods : The subjects in this study were 220 dental hygienists who worked in dental hospitals and clinics in Busan and South Gyeongsang Province. A survey was conducted from May 17 to June 17, 2010, and the answer sheets from 183 respondents were analyzed with a SPSS WIN 12.0 program. Statistical data on frequency, percentage and mean were obtained, and t-test, Pearson correlation coefficient and one-way ANOVA were utilized. Results : They got a mean of $4.59{\pm}.68$ in six categories of infection control knowledge. They had the best knowledge on dental waste disposal, followed by hand washing, post-sterilization management, instrument disinfection and sterilization, surface management of dental equipment and wearing personal protective equipment. They got a mean of $3.99{\pm}.54$ in attitude, and they scored lowest in practice of surface management of dental equipment. Overall, they scored higher in every aspect of knowledge than in attitude(t=11.410, p=.0.000). There was the greatest gap between their knowledge and practice in surface management of dental equipment (t=13.885, p=0.000), and there was the smallest gap between their knowledge and practice in hand washing(t=5.460, p=0.000). And a positive correlation was found between knowledge and attitude, as better knowledge of infection control led to better attitude toward that(p<.001). Finally, concerning infection control knowledge and attitude by general characteristics, the presence or absence of infection control guidelines made differences to infection control knowledge, and infection control attitude was statistically significantly different according to infection control education experiences(t=6.501, p=.012) and the presence or absence of infection control guidelines(t=22.836, p=.000). Conclusions : In order to bolster infection control in dental office, the related system should be improved to legally require dental personnels to implement infection control. Every dental office must be furnished with infection control guidelines, and sustained education should be provided for dental hygienists to carry out infection control.
