Compliance of Dental Staff and Students to Dental Guideline amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Institutional Analysis

Abstract

COVID-19 can be transferred via aerosols. Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, dental practitioners, supporting clinical staff and clinical-year dental students are directly exposed to aerosols produced during dental treatment. Thus, the Faculty of Dentistry of Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia (USIM) developed dental guidelines that included a standard operating procedure for clinical settings. This study aimed to assess the adherence of clinical staff and students to dental guidelines during the COVID-19 pandemic and investigate the nature and extent of difficulties encountered by the faculty members in complying with the guidelines. The dental guidelines were explained to all faculty members, and then an audit form was developed on the basis of the guidelines. A series of clinical audits was conducted on a weekly basis. Afterwards, a survey was conducted to investigate any problems faced by dental clinical staff and students in terms of complying with the guidelines. The percentage of noncompliance to wearing goggles and face shields during dental procedures was 7.1% and 2.1%, respectively. Amongst 128 respondents, 84.1% reported unclear vision due to the fogging of the goggles, whereas 45.2% reported blurred vision when goggles and face shields were worn together. Moreover, approximately 30.2% of the respondents claimed that KN95 masks contribute to difficulty in breathing. Nevertheless, most of the dental clinical staff and students were compliant to the dental guidelines. Noncompliance was mainly caused by the fogging issue when wearing goggles. Thus, this issue should be tackled to prevent the impairment of treatment quality.