Awareness of droplet and airborne isolation precautions among dental health professionals during the outbreak of corona virus infection in Riyadh city, Saudi Arabia

BACKGROUND: This study aimed to determine knowledge, attitude and practice of airborne and droplet isolation precautions among Dental Health Professionals (DHPs) (dental students, interns, practitioners and auxiliaries) during the outbreak of MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome), corona virus infection in Riyadh city, Saudi Arabia. MATERIAL AND METHODS: A cross-sectional survey was conducted among 406 dental health professionals (DHPs) working in selected dental facilities in Riyadh city, Saudi Arabia during the outbreak of MERS (April-June 2013). A structured, close-ended, self-administered questionnaire explored the knowledge, attitude, and practice towards droplet and isolation precautions. Collected data was subjected to descriptive statistics to express demographic information, mean knowledge score, mean attitude score and practice score of DHPs. Inferential statistics (Mann-Whitney U test and Kruskal Wallis tests, p < 0.05) were used to examine differences between study variables. Spearman’s rho correlation was used to identify the association between the knowledge-attitude, knowledge-practice, and attitude-practice. RESULTS: A response rate of rate of 90.22% (406 out of 452) was obtained. The mean scores of knowledge, attitude and practice were 10.61 ± 1.19, 50.54 ± 7.53 and 8.50 ± 2.14 respectively. Spearman’s correlation test revealed a significant linear positive correlation between knowledge and attitude (r-0.501, P- 0.01), knowledge and practice (r-0.185, P-0.01) and attitude and practice (r-0.351, P- 0.01) of DHPs about airborne isolation precautions. CONCLUSIONS: Dental health professionals considered in the present study showed good knowledge, positive attitude and good practice towards droplet and airborne isolation precautions during outbreak of MERS. Key words:Knowledge, attitude, practice, droplet, airborne, precaution, dental professionals.