A Description of Infection Control Structure in Primary Dental Health Care, Brazil

This study is aimed at describing a score to assess infection control structures in Oral Health Teams (OHT) in Primary Health Care (PHC) in Brazil.

Secondary data from a national external evaluation of PHC conducted in 2017 and 2018 were analyzed. The construction of the score used 14 variables, divided into the following: structural characteristics of the PHC, infection control equipment under conditions of use, and biosafety supplies in sufficient quantity. The questions were mostly dichotomous (yes/no). Descriptive analyses were carried out to characterize the OHT and factor analyses to reduce the number of observed variables to a specific number of factors.

Among 20,301 health units with OHT, 4,510 (22.2%) units did not have washable floors, ceilings, and walls; 8,406 (41.4%) did not have a sealer; 16,780 (82.7%) did not have taps with noncontact activation, and 4,663 (23.0%) units did not have rubber gloves. Regarding personal protective equipment (PPE), 1,618 (8.0%) units did not have a sufficient quantity of basic PPE. Three factors were defined to explain the 14 evaluated variables. The South region had the best score of infection control, while the North had the worst.

Regional inequalities in the failures in infection control structures identified in PHC with OHT were related to the physical structure, equipment, and supplies used for infection control and the absence of PPE for OHT.