Attitude of practicing dentists towards vaccine-preventable infectious diseases: A cross-sectional study

Background: The vaccination of dentists against various vaccine-preventable infections is the most important measure of primary prevention against such diseases which would otherwise prove fatal for both the dentists and their patients. Aim: A study was conducted among the general as well as specialist dentists to evaluate their attitude towards vaccine-preventable infectious diseases (VPIDs) in Asir, Saudi Arabia. Materials and Methods: A self-administered questionnaire was formulated and sent through E-mails to the dentists (both general and specialist dentists) who gave the consent in participation. For most of the questions, a 5-point Likert scale was used ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree. The responses were subjected to statistical analysis. Results: Majority (76.5%) of the respondents strongly agree that a dentist should be compulsorily immunized against Hepatitis B, while 11.4% of the respondents strongly disagreed for the same. The difference between the responses was found to be highly significant (P = 0.0000**). Nearly 42.4% of the dental professionals agreed, while 27.3% strongly agreed that dentists should get vaccinated against influenza, compulsorily. Most of the respondents (19.7%) neither agreed nor disagreed that the dentists should be compulsorily vaccinated against influenza. Conclusion: It is concluded that dentists were aware as well as vaccinated against most of the VPIDs, except for influenza which was not considered much harmful by the subjects that resulted in less section of dental professionals being vaccinated against influenza