A Study on the Effect of Educational Intervention Based on Health Belief Model on Infection Control Among Dental Students of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences

Observance of the principles of infection control in dentistry is the basis of preventing the transmission of dangerous diseases such as AIDS, hepatitis and preventing the spread of diseases in the community. In view of the importance of dentistry education in the field of observance of the principles of infection control, the aim of this study was to determine the effect of educational intervention on infection control among dental students of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences.
The present study is a pre and post interventional study that the number of samples is 75 dental students referred to Endodontics Department of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences for endodontic treatment and radiotherapy of teeth during treatment in the academic year of 95-96 that were selected by available sampling method and after determining the sample size, a researcher-made questionnaire was prepared based on the Health Belief Model and verified in terms of validity and reliability, and completed in two stages before and after training with a 3 month interval. Three training sessions were conducted in this study for 15-30 minutes during the course of one month as group training and question and answer. During these meetings, students were given useful materials about infection control in dentistry, pathogenic microorganisms, transmission methods, and infection control guidelines in dentistry radiology. The data gathering tool was a questionnaire based on Health Belief Model. after data collection, spss21 software was used to analyze them. Non-parametric Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests, paired t-test and non-parametric Wilcoxon test were used for statistical analysis of the 05/0 significance level before and after the knowledge and structures of the health belief model.
The results of statistical analysis showed that 62.7% of the participants were female students and 89.3% of single students, and the participants in the study were from 8,9,11 terms. The results of this study showed that the mean and standard deviation of knowledge and performance scores of students toward infection control before training were 11.48 ± 2.23 and 5.48 ± 0. 93, respectively, and after the training were increased to 14.75±0.57 and 9.36 ± 0.91. This difference was statistically significant by doing paired t-test (p the comparison of the mean and standard deviation of the scores of other aspects of the health belief model regarding infection control among dentistry students also showed a significant increase.
According to the results, it can be concluded that education based on the health belief model has been effective in controlling infection in dentistry students.