Personal protective equipment in dentistry before and after COVID-19

Abstract

The use of personal protective equipment during dental treatments guarantees the professionals and patients’ health. This researcher’s purpose is to analyze in scientific literature the dental students and professionals’ knowledge regarding the use of personal protective equipment, before and after the COVID-19 pandemic. An integrative review was carried out in the databases: Scielo, Pubmed, BVS and Web of Science, including articles published between August 2010 and August 2022. 14 articles were selected, available in full in the selected databases. Theses, review articles, duplicates and those where the methodology did not respond to the proposed objective were excluded. In the 14 selected articles, the method for obtaining data was the questionnaire. The studies were carried out in Brazil, Yemen, Cuba, Mexico, Lebanon, Turkey, India, London, and Colombia. Six studies were carried out before the pandemic and 8 of them after its start. All researches evaluated knowledge, attitudes, practices and factors related to the use of personal protective equipment. It is concluded that the use of personal protective equipment before the pandemic was already an essential practice to guarantee the safety of professionals, students and patients during dental procedures; with the COVID-19 pandemic, new protocols were established and with them new equipment such as the use of the face shield and the N95 mask.

Keywords

• contención de riesgos biológicos
• equipo de protección personal
• odontología