Awareness of Dental Team towards HIV Positive Patients in Sudan

Background: The deficit of awareness about the mode of transmission and the use of safety equipment may explain the stigma HIV positive patients faced in health care services worldwide, in particular in Sudan. The paper intends to examine the knowledge and the use of standard precaution measures by oral health professionals.Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted in Ribat University Teaching Hospital, Sudan. A, convenient sample of 105 oral health professionals was interviewed. A self-administrated questionnaire developed in English and translated in Arabic by the author was handled to the participants. The research instrument comprised sociodemographic information, HIV knowledge, awareness towards the mode of transmission and the use of safety equipment and measures. Data were entered in Epi InfoTM 7.1.5.0 and analyzed with SPSS 21 for MS Windows (SPSS, Chicago, IL, USA). A reliability analysis of the scale of measurement based on Cronbach’s alpha method was performed to assess the quality of the answers of the participants.Results: Of the 97 participants, 50.5% had poor knowledge of HIV oral signs. Concerning the use of safety equipment (n=105), only 29.5% were “Fully aware”. Of the 105 participants, ways of prevention of transmission were reported to be known by 94.3%. The study revealed that 59.6% of the participants (n=105) were “Fully aware” and 40.4% were “Not aware” about the appropriate measures to be taken.Conclusions: The results of the study suggested that oral health professionals lack knowledge about HIV signs and use of safety standards, these weakened their awareness. These findings had implications for continuing education for all oral health professions to incorporate evidence-based on HIV transmission and prevention