HIV infection: perception amongst Indian, Thai and Chinese dental professionals

Abstract

HIV-infection: Perception amongst Indian, Thai and Chinese dental professionals. Nair RG Samaranayake LP, Anil S, Itthagarun A el al. HIV-infection is now firmly entrenched in South East Asia, especially in India and Thailand. However there are no studies on the attitudes and knowledge of Indian, Thai and Chinese dental care personnel towards this disease. Hence a questionnaire survey was conducted amongst clinical dental students and faculty staff in two dental schools in the states of Karnataka and Kerala, in South India (n = 200); two dental schools in Bangkok, Thailand (« = 90); and one dental school in Beijing, China (« = 103). Although a majority of the respondents were aware of the facts related to HIV-infection and its oral manifestations there were noticeable gaps in their knowledge regarding the infectivity of the virus and infection control. In particular, 90% of the Indian participants believed HIV transmission in the clinic to be either likely or very likely, as opposed to 47% Thai personnel. All the Thai, and 90% of the Indian and Chinese respondents wore protective gloves in routine dentistry. Most of the Chinese (71%) and Indians (66%) believed that HIV transmission could occur via saliva. 30% of Chinese and 23% of Indians surmised that social kissing to be a route of HTV transmission; equivalent Thai figures were 18% and 4%, respectively. Significantly greater number of Thais believed that sharing cutlery (40%), crockery (11%), and razors (82%) would transmit HTV, equivalent figure for the latter was 76% for Chinese. These results indicate the prevalence of glaring misconceptions on HIV-infection amongst the dental fraternity in India, Thailand, and China, and the urgent necessity of educational programmes.