Description

A previous study reported on the attitudes to cross infection control of dental laboratories registered with the Dental Laboratories Association. The aim of the present study was to further investigate the attitudes of commercial as well as hospital dental laboratories on cross infection control within the dental laboratory. A questionnaire was mailed to 1000 commercial laboratories in the U.K. by the Dental Laboratories Association and 48 dental hospital laboratories in the U.K. and Ireland. Replies were received from 170 commercial laboratories (17% response rate) and 26 (54% response rate) dental hospital laboratories.

The results demonstrated an apparent trend within commercial laboratories to improve cross infection control procedures, since 76% have implemented a policy compared to 49% seven years ago. Of those laboratories with existing cross-infection policies most of them had been implemented within the previous four years. A large numbers of dental impressions are not disinfected prior to receiving them in the commercial laboratory with only 12% of commercial dental technicians reporting that the impressions are generally disinfected, 27% sometimes, 13% occasionally and 5% never. One hundred percent of removable prosthodontic, 88%of orthodontic and 78% of fixed prosthodontic laboratories generally receive disinfected impressions. In terms of the disinfection of dental work on arrival at the laboratory, only 52% of the commercial laboratories, 12% of orthodontic, 11% of fixed prosthodontic and none of the removable prosthodontic laboratories reported that they disinfected impressions on arrival. Dental impressions would appear to be the items of dental work which are most commonly disinfected in the commercial laboratory. As many as 60% of commercial, 67% of removable prosthodontic, 87.5% orthodontic and 56% of fixed prosthodontic laboratories reported that they would never reject a dental impression received from the dentist with obvious contamination. Eighty one percent of commercial dental technicians and 100% of hospital technicians wore gloves for inspection and handling of work. With regard to immunization against hepatitis B, 63% of commercial, 100% of orthodontic, 100% of fixed prosthodontic and 89% of removable prosthodontic technicians were immunized. Since it is possible that the dental technicians are at a small risk of cross infection from laboratory work received which has been in contact with patients, it is important that every effort is made by the dental team to follow recognized guidelines for effective cross infection control in order to minimize the risk.