Dentist’s Knowledge and Attitudes About Herpes simplex infection

The lack of information on the knowledge and attitude of dentists towards herpes simplex virus is one of the concerns of the community.

A cross-sectional study was conducted on 400 dentists using continuous referral sampling technique. The questionnaire used to collect data included three sections: there were some questions on individual characteristics, 12 questions on dentists’ knowledge about Herpes simplex infection, and 12 questions on dentists’ attitudes towards this infection. In the section on knowledge, each question received a score of 1. The score range of each attitude question was 0-3. Data were analyzed running chi-squared regression analysis in SPSS, version 11.

Of 400 dentists evaluated, 48.25% were female and 51.75% were male, with a mean age of 30 years.Knowledge was not very good in any of the samples, it was 3.5% good, low in 3.1%, and very low in 96.3%. As for the attitude towards herpes simplex infection, 30.3% had positive attitude, 58.2% had a relatively positive attitude, and 11.5% had a negative attitude. According to the results, there was a significant relationship between the lower age, education, university, and the province of activity (p < 0/05). Furthermore, female gender, age above 30, year of education prior to 2011, and graduates of Azad and Shahed University revealed positive awareness about herpes simplex infection (p < 0/05).

The knowledge and attitudes of dentists studied were lower than the expected levels. Thus, it is necessary to design proper educational programs to improve dentists’ knowledge and attitudes on Herpes simplex infection.