| dc.description.abstract | Background
Infection-control measures are practices that are employed to prevent or reduce the risk of disease transmission and include; hand washing, use of personal protective equipments, proper instrument sterilization and disinfection, immunization against diseases like Hep B, patient screening, needle & sharp instrument safety and infectious dental waste management and disposal. Decisions made by DHCP regarding the level of precautions to use are based on the nature of the procedure, and not on the actual or assumed serological status of the patient following infection control and safety guidelines.
Objective:
To assess practices of infection control measures at Mulago Dental School Clinic in Kampala
City, Uganda.
Findings:
All demographic factors appeared very significant in implementation of infection control measures at Mulago dental school clinic. That is (p-value 0.000 at 95% confidence). Among the hand washing facilities soap and hand towels were significant (p-value 0.000 at 95% confidence) compared to running water (P-value 0.002 at 95% CI). Among the PPEs availability, eye goggles were significant (P-value 0.000). In waste management availability of safety boxes and color coded bins were significant with (P-value 0.000) respectively. Sterilization was (P-value 0.007) and thus less significant among the factors in this category.
Conclusion:
Health facility factors were found to be very significant in this study and therefore there is need
to improve on the availability the items in this category which include: medicated soap personal
hand towels goggles and color coded bins.
Recommendations:
Management should ensure that guidelines to facilitate standard operating procedures for the staff are put in place. In addition items such as medicated soap, hand towels used in hand hygiene should be in place. Personal protective equipment such as goggles should be procured and made readily available to
the staff. The institution administrator should make sure color coded bins are available to DHCP for use
regularly. There should be continuous medical and health education organized for the health workers by
Ministry of Health and Sports to improve their capacity on infection prevention; this should be backed by continuous monitoring for adherence. The facility should recruit a key infection control person to oversee infection control process. The administration should ensure that there is information flow concerning infection control within the department. | en_US |
