Prevalence of Rubber Dam Usage during Endodontic Procedure: A Questionnaire Survey

To determine the prevalence and frequency of rubber dam usage for endodontic procedures among general practitioners, specialized practitioners, undergraduate final year students and Endodontists in the state of Odisha, India.

A pre-piloted questionnaire was distributed among 737 subjects. Dentists and final year students were surveyed in relation to their prevalence of rubber dam usage.

Chi-square/ Fisher Exact tests have been used to find the significance of study parameters on categorical scale between two or more groups.

Overall response rate was 71%. While about 94% of the subjects knew the use of rubber dam, 30% have used it for root canal cases and 23% use them for all cases of root canal treatment. Use of rubber dam was 15.4% in paediatric patients and 34.4% in adult patients. 68% of subjects received knowledge about rubber dam usage in undergraduate school. 75% felt that rubber dam should be compulsory before endodontic treatment & 90% were willing to gain knowledge through training and continuing dental education programs.

Whilst rubber dam is used frequently for root canal treatment than operative treatment, in the present survey there is a low prevalence of its usage during endodontic therapy. This presents quality issues, as well as medico-legal and safety concerns for the professional and patients alike. Greater emphasis should be placed on the advantages of using rubber dam in clinical dentistry at dental school and through continuing dental education for practitioners to update their knowledge.