Comparison of Compliance with Infection Control Practices Among Dental Students in Saudi Arabia Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic

BACKGROUND: With the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, professional organizations issued new guidelines for infection control standards in dental clinics. The objective of this study was to compare dental students’ compliance with those standards before the COVID-19 outbreak and during the pandemic. METHODS: This cross-sectional study entailed observing 622 dental students during their clinical sessions to assess compliance with the infection control protocol. The compliance checklist used was adopted from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Infection Control Checklist for Dental Settings. Observations took place during two consecutive years: once in 2019 before the COVID-19 outbreak and once in 2020 during the pandemic. RESULTS: The dental students audited in 2019 were 1.4 times more likely to violate infection control measures compared with those in 2020. The two most common violations in both audits were not wearing eye protection and not following hand hygiene recommendations immediately after they removed their gloves. During both audits, male students violated infection controls significantly less often than female students. CONCLUSION: Dental students’ adherence to infection control measures improved during the COVID-19 pandemic compared with before the COVID-19 pandemic. Compliance with personal protective equipment standards was higher than with hand hygiene practices. Our findings have important clinical implications in designing strategies to improve dental students’ compliance with infection control standards, particularly hand hygiene practices.