Use of rubber dam among dentists working in the west part of Iran

Although Rubber dam (RD) usage is one of the ideal and standard methods for isolating the teeth in several operative procedures of dentistry, General Dental Practitioners often neglect it. Many studies within several countries have reported various frequencies for RD application. There is no such study for Iran, so we conducted a study to report the frequency of its application and the effective factors. This cross-sectional study carried out across the west part of Iran in 2013. A total of 525 general Dental Practitioners from the public and private sectors selected by stratified random sampling using a list from 3 big western cities of Iran. The data were collected using self-administrated checklist. The prevalence of RD application among General Dental Practitioner was 0.2% (confidence interval 95%: 0.196-0.204). RD instrument was existed in around 7% of cases. The main reason of the General Dental Practitioner to avoid RD application was supposing it is time-consuming procedure and causing patients stress (58.9%). Despite the advantages of RD application, its usage is not recognized as a routine, and common method of isolation during dental procedures even root canal therapy by Iranian General Dental Practitioners.