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Personal protective equipment (PPE) can help protect dental personnel from exposure to pathogens. However, correctly donning and doffing PPE without self-contamination can be difficult. The network studied how dental care workers don and doff PPE, when and where self-contamination is most likely to occur, and how to help improve knowledge about this. The results from the study were recently published and Kimberly Reske and Jennie Kwon, the study principal investigator, shared their findings with us in our blog.
Main Study Findings:
- The PPE step with the most deviations was hand hygiene, and the PPE item that caused the most problems for participants was the disposable gown.
- 69% of the participants had fluorescence detected on them post-doffing, most often on the hands.
- Participants with more protocol deviations were significantly more likely to have fluorescence detected on them.
- Some dental healthcare professionals were unsure of when and how to don and doff specialty equipment.
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