Assessing the Compliance of Dental Clinicians towards Regulatory Infection Control Guidelines Using a Newly Developed Survey Tool: A Pilot Cross-Sectional Study in India

• Published in: Healthcare (Basel) 2022-09, Vol.10 (10), p.1877
• Main Authors: Kaurani, Pragati, Batra, Kavita, Rathore Hooja, Himangini, Chander, N. Gopi, Bhowmick, Anamitra, Arora, Suraj, Baba, Suheel Manzoor, Khateeb, Shafait Ullah, Abdulla, Anshad M, Grover, Vishakha, Saluja, Priyanka
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Clinics; Coronaviruses; COVID-19; Cross-sectional studies; Dental care; Dental personnel; Dentists; Disease control; Disease prevention; Disease transmission; Epidemics; Evaluation; Health aspects; India; Infection control; Infections; Likert scale; Medicine; Methods; Pandemics; Patients; Personal protective equipment; Practice; Public health; Questionnaires; Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2; Validity
• ISSN: 2227-9032; 2227-9032
• DOI: 10.3390/healthcare10101877

Adherence to the dental practice regulatory guidelines instituted during the COVID-19 pandemic is essential to minimize the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 strains. Given the lack of a valid and reliable survey tool to assess the adherence to dental practice guidelines, this study aims to develop, validate, and test a survey tool on a pilot sample of dental clinicians practicing in India. A survey tool was developed/validated through a sequential phasic approach: Phase I- developing survey using conceptual and literature framework; Phase II: ascertaining its validity and reliability; Phase III: pilot testing; and Phase IV: assessing construct validity by exploratory factor analysis (EFA) on the responses collected in Spring 2021. The EFA was achieved using a traditional unweighted least squares extraction method through a varimax rotation with Kaiser normalization. A six-factor solution with 18 items (with the global reliability of 86%) related to screening, regular infection prevention measures, infection control inside the dental operatory, disinfection of the dental unit, disposal, and other COVID-19-specific preventive measures were extracted. Our sample had higher compliance with regard to providing alcohol-based hand scrubs, providing protective gear to attendees, collecting travel/medical history, and screening patients for COVID-19 symptoms. In contrast, less compliance was observed regarding the use of paperless forms of practice and rubber dams in the operatory. The use of a validated survey tool ensures the collection of reliable and valid data, which can serve as baseline data to measure the uptake and effectiveness of dental practice regulatory guidelines in a clinical setting and community dental health clinics.