Knowledge of Patients Regarding Infection Control in Dentistry: Development and Validation of a New Questionnaire

Objectives: Assessment of patients’ knowledge regarding infection control in dentistry can help professionals in the development of protocol planning to minimize the risk of disease transmission through dental procedures. The aim of this paper is to assess the knowledge level about infection control of patients presenting to the dental clinic of the School of Dentistry, Tehran University of Medical Sciences in 2020. Materials and Methods: The draft of the questionnaire was designed with eight domains regarding infection control in dentistry including the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19). The content validity of the questionnaire was assessed by six experts and 10 laypersons. The reliability of the questionnaire was assessed by the test-retest method. Two-hundred and forty-four patients (over 20 years of age) were selected based on non-random convenience sampling method, and participated in this study in July 2020. According to the difficulty coefficient, differential coefficient, and the opinion of the experts about the questionnaire filled out by the participants, 24 questions were selected out of 43 for the final version. Results: The intra-rater reliability indices were ≥75% and the scale-content validity indices for relevance, simplicity, and clarity were 87.80%, 93.75% % and 93.33%, respectively. The knowledge score of patients was 76.83%±11.58% which was not correlated with the level of education, age or gender (P>0.05). Conclusion: The knowledge level of patients presenting to the dental clinic of Tehran University of Medical Scineces measured by a valid and reliable researcher-made questionnaire was acceptable about infection control.