Assessment of the Dentist's Knowledge and Practice on Post-exposure Prophylaxis of HIV

Statement of Problem: Disease causing factors transferred by the blood are the main job related problems to which the health workers are confronted in medical centers. This is an urgent medical problem which requires appropriate measures to be taken to decrease the transmission as far as possible.. The aim of this study was to investigate the level of dentist's knowledge and practice in Kerman city about the post-exposure prophylaxis of HIV.Methods and Material: This was an analytical, cross-sectional study conducted through questionnaires. The case study consisted of all the dentists in Kerman (140), recruited through convenient sampling method. Data were analyzed using Mann-Whitney u, X2, Kruskal Wallis and Spearman tests in SPSS, version 13.5. In the present study, 103 dentists were enrolled. Their information and knowledge mean score was 2.32±1.2 out of 6. Also, the lowest and highest scores of the participants were 1 and 5, respectively (with the mean value equal to 3). It was found that the dentist's level of knowledge has no significant relationship with age, sex, education, work history and experience of needle stick injuries. Ninty three dentists (90.2%) had educated their staff about the prevention of HIV and 58% of the dentists agreed to treat the patients with positive HIV. The results of the present study showed that the dentist's level of knowledge about post-exposure prophylaxis and HIV is low. Therefore, it seems that it is necessary for dentists to improve their knowledge and performance regarding this issue.