Thesis (MPH) -- University of Limpopo, 2012. / Background: The HIV pandemic continues to be a major public health problem in
Sub-Saharan Africa where 22.5 million people were infected with HIV in 2009 and
South Africa remains one amongst the countries with the highest HIV epidemic. The
number of HIV-positive and AIDS patients is increasing annually and there are no
specialised oral health institutions that provide oral health care to HIV/AIDS patients.
HIV and AIDS continues to have profound impact on all health training and
education (Medical, Dentistry, Nursing etc.) and clinical care, hence it is crucial for
all the health care students to be educated about HIV/AIDS disease. Dental
student’s knowledge about HIV/AIDS, attitudes towards HIV-positive patients and
infection control practices are of importance as they are the future oral health care
providers.
The Purpose: The purpose of the study was to determine the knowledge, attitudes
and practices of third, fourth and fifth year dental students on HIV-positive and AIDS
patients at the Medunsa Oral Health Centre (MOHC).
Materials and Methods: This was a cross-sectional study conducted among 139
dental students at MOHC using a self administered questionaire with 30 closedended
questions. T-test, one-way Anova (analysis of variance), multiple regressions
and Pearson’s correlation were applied by Stata IC/10 to assess, determine and
describe the knowledge, attitude and infection control practices of third, fourth and
fifth year dental students, respectively and also find an association between
demographic variables, knowledge, attitudes and practices.
Results: The response rate was 86% (120/139), 33 of third year, 47 of fourth year
and 40 of fifth year dental students. Gender was statistically significant towards
knowledge and females were more knowledgeable about HIV/AIDS as compared to
males (p=0.058). However, almost (98.3%) all dental students were not sure “HIV
increases other infections, including oral infections as well”. More than half (53.1%)
of third year dental students were not sure “persistent generalised lymphadenopathy
vi
is associated with stage 2 of HIV infection”. In this study, ethnic groups and level of
study (BDS4 & BDS5) were found to be significant predictors of attitude regarding
HIV-positive patients (p=0.001) (p=0.055) (p=0.001). Practice was found to be a
significant predictor of knowledge regarding HIV/AIDS (p=0.046). Pearson’s
correlation coefficient showed students with positive attitude scores had significantly
excellent practice regarding HIV/AIDS (r=0.2912) (p=0.001). Good knowledge
translates into excellent infection control practices, whilst positive attitude towards
HIV/AIDS patients yield excellent infection control practices.
Conclusion: The dental students at MOHC relatively have a good understanding of
HIV/AIDS (particularly the mode of transmission) but to lesser extent, disease
progress and oral manifestation. The lack of knowledge on HIV/AIDS and
inconsistency regarding certain infection control procedures may be a reflection of
insufficient HIV/AIDS teaching and clinical supervision of students in the wards.
There is a need to improve the current dental curriculum by including HIV/AIDS
module and incorporate a clinical component of dental screening at the ARV clinics.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:ul/oai:ulspace.ul.ac.za:10386/1093 |
| Date | January 2012 |
| Creators | Galane, Mpatikana Leslie |
| Contributors | Mndzebele, S. |
| Publisher | University of Limpopo (Medunsa Campus) |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Relation | 6.0 |
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