Development of Personal Protection Equipment for Medical Staff: Case of Dental Surgeon

Abstract

During daily oral health care, dental surgeons are in contact with numerous potentially infectious germs from patients’ saliva and blood. Appropriate personal protection equipment should be chosen to mitigate these risks, but the garment must also be comfortable and not hamper activities. This paper presents our research work on optimised working clothing for dentists and discusses some important points in the functional design. Following a consumer study on how users wear the garment and what are their expectations, three main functions were investigated: protection, ergonomics and thermal comfort. Aesthetic appearance was also taken into consideration as it is necessary that the wearer should feel appropriately and attractively dressed in the context of health care.

Keywords

• gown
• dentists
• design
• comfort
• protection
• thermal