Knowledge, practice, and awareness of dental undergraduate and postgraduate students toward postexposure prophylaxis and needlestick injuries: A descriptive cross-sectional institutional dental hospital study

Background: The aim of the present study was to assess the knowledge, awareness, and practice of dental undergraduate, interns, and postgraduate students toward postexposure prophylaxis (PEP) and needlestick injuries. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional, questionnaire-based survey was carried out among undergraduate, interns and postgraduate dental students in an institutional dental hospital in India. The students were required to fill a self-administered questionnaire with close ended questions with responses indicated by a simple tick box format. The questionnaire was divided into three sections intended to collect information on (1) sociodemographic characteristics, (2) knowledge, and (3) practice habits toward needlestick injury (NSI) and PEP of the respondents. Results: An adequate score (>70% correct response) to knowledge about NSI and PEP was obtained by 60.2% (50/83) of the respondents, while 47% (39/83) of the student participants obtained an adequate score (>70% score) to appropriate practice habits toward NSI and PEP. A high proportion (84.3%) of the student were vaccinated against Hepatitis B virus, but only 6% were aware of their serum antibody to HBsAg. 61.5% of the student reported experiencing NSI during clinical practice with 3.6% of the students taking PEP. The most common reason for not taking PEP was ignorance of PEP protocol (27.7%) and lack of support to report the incidence (18.1%). The postgraduate students scored better than the undergraduate students in both the knowledge and practice parameters, but the results were not statistically significant (P > 0.05). Conclusion: This study shows that dental students' knowledge, practice, and awareness toward NSI and PEP is inadequate. The current classroom education must be supplemented with additional interventions to ingrain appropriate practice habits.