Evaluation of dental impression disinfection protocol followed by undergraduate, general practice, and specialized dentists in Iraq

Objectives: the purpose of this research is to investigate and collect data about the most commonly used impression disinfection protocol by the dental students, general practices and specialists of Iraqi dentists. Materials and Method: The study was conducted as a descriptive survey of infection control measures in the dental students, general practices and specialists of Iraqi dentists. A self-administered questionnaire was designed to assess the knowledge, attitude, and practices of infection control measures by dentists. The questionnaire was pretested, revised, and retested before use. The study population included dental students, general practices and specialists of Iraqi dentists in August 2020 (n=309) to whom the questionnaires were distributed. Three researchers gathered questionnaire data by google drive questionnaire because of COVID-19 pandemic. No tracking system was used to determine who responded to ensure anonymity. Institutional ethical committee approval was obtained before administration of the questionnaire. Results: Out of the 309 participants to whom the questionnaire was sent by email, all of them are responding to the questionnaire, about 87.4% using disinfectants while 12.6% of the participant has no belief in disinfection of dental impression, while 70.9% of the participants rinsing dental impression with water and 29.1% did not rinse the impression. Conclusion: 1-Impression disinfection is an important part of cross infection control to reduce infection spread between patient, dentist and technician. 2-Choice of type of disinfectant material and method depend on the dentist's preference, available equipment, material availability and cost. 3-It is important to ensure that the chosen disinfectant material causes no deterioration and dimensional change to the impression material used.