Correlation between Knowledge and Attitude with The Practice of Using PPE among Professional Dental Students at Jember University Dental Hospital, Indonesia: A Cross-Sectional Study

Background: Hundreds of millions of nosocomial infection cases are estimated yearly worldwide. Nosocomial infections significantly lead to death and financial losses in the healthcare system. There is a need for infection mitigation, one of them is using Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). The importance of using PPE is still not supported by its compliance. Aim and Objective: This study aims to determine the relationship between knowledge and attitude toward PPE use among professional dental students at RSGM Universitas Jember. Materials and Method: The research method uses quantitative observational analytics cross-sectionally with questionnaires given through google forms and checklists filled out by researchers during observation. Variable involvement consists of knowledge, attitude, and practice in using PPE. It took 132 professional dental students as the respondents whose selection was done by stratified random sampling. Data analysis was performed univariate and bivariate using Microsoft Excel and the chi-square test on SPSS. Results: 81.8% of respondents had a good level of knowledge of PPE use, 81.1% of respondents had a positive attitude towards using PPE, and there were 22% of respondents who were not compliant using PPE. Respondents who did not comply with PPE came from dental treatment-producing aerosols. There was a relationship between knowledge and PPE use (p-value 0.002), but no relationship was found between attitude and PPE use (p-value 0.792). Conclusion: There was a relationship between knowledge and PPE use but no relationship between attitude and PPE use.