[Barriers to the enforcement of hygiene requirements in dental practice]

Abstract

In a psychological exploration study 40 dentists were interviewed on the basis of an attitude-orientated decision-making model; 20 of them also made dental units in their consulting rooms available to M. Borneff (10) for analysis and examination. Both subsamples are comparable in terms of structure; differences in the way of answering were not detected. The study focuses on the analysis of complex psychological barriers which would permit us to explain and predict unsatisfactory hygienic behavior in dental practice. The following major results deserve attention: Hygiene and infection prophylaxis in dental practice are questions of relatively high current relevance and sensitivity. The dealing with hygienic hazards and related prophylactic measures is relatively varied and indicates that dentists are willing to further receive and absorb information. But the elimination of possible risk factors is impaired by a variety of psychological barriers which do not exist independently from each other and which also tend to reciprocally intensify one another: Barriers for lack of knowledge While interviewees attribute increasing significance to hygiene in the study of dentistry, the compulsory subject hygienics plays a rather minor role within one's individual education. Knowledge in the field of hygiene and hygienic behavior are essentially a question of further training. But sources of information providing additional continued training are used rather sporadically and judged diversely. Incomprehensibilities and inconsistencies in scientific publications, unsatisfactory effectiveness and practicability of possible hygienic measures do not contribute to a coherent, systematic formation of opinion relevant to behaviour. Deficiencies in terms of knowledge also occur in dental assistants who play a crucial role in carrying out hygienic measures in dental practice. Barriers on account of probability Being aware of the essential hygienic risk factors (dental staff and patients, handpieces and angle pieces, dental impression materials, instruments, dental units) and also knowing of possible prophylactic measures the subjective probability that hazards will actually occur in one's own dental practice is low; only in a few individual instances a hazardous case was encountered already once before. The willingness to invest in statistically only probable and remote (in terms of time) risk eventualities, i.e. the readiness to bear objective as well as psychological "costs" without guarantee of amortization, is only slight. Barriers on account of problems.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)