Awareness of Dental Specialists and General Dentists about Hepatitis B in Sari, Iran 2018

Abstract

Background and purpose: Hepatitis B is one of the most common viral infectious diseases of the liver, which is of particular importance due to the possibility of chronic conditions and high risk of transmission, especially during dental treatments. The best way to combat is preventing the infection. The present study was conducted to determine the level of awareness of general dentists and dental specialists in Sari about hepatitis B. Materials and methods: In a descriptive-analytical study, 142 general dentists and dental specialists were included using census sampling in Sari, Iran 2018. The participants completed a questionnaire designed by Alavian et al. 2011. SPSS V24 was used for data analysis. Results: The subjects were 88 (62.9%) males and 54 (38.1%) females. Findings showed that 50% of dentists had a good level of awareness, 44.37% had a moderate level of awareness and 5.63% had a low level of awareness about hepatitis B. Overall, the level of awareness was found to have no significant association with gender (P= 0.58), being a general dentist or dental specialist (P=0.66), participating in infection control courses (P= 0.50), and age (P=0.06(. Conclusion: In this study, dentists were found to have an appropriate level of awareness about hepatitis B, but, there is still a need for retraining courses.

Keywords

• awareness level
• hepatitis b
• dental specialist
• general dentist