Online Questionnaire-Based Study to Evaluate the Attitudes and Use of Rubber Dental Dams by Saudi Dental Practitioners

Background: A dental dam is a protective sheet with an aperture and is used to prevent the spread of infection during den-tal procedures. This study aimed to use a 2-part online questionnaire to evaluate the attitudes and use of rub-ber dental dams by 300 Saudi dental interns, general dental practitioners, residents, specialists, and consul-tants in prosthodontics, endodontics, and restorative dentistry. Material/Methods: The 17-item validated questionnaire consisted of 5 questions on demographics, 2 on knowledge, 6 on atti-tudes, and 4 on perceptions. It was distributed through Google Forms. The chi-square test was used to deter-mine the associations between the study variables and perception questions.Results: A total of 41.67% participants were specialists/consultants, among which 59.2% were in the prosthodontics specialty, 12.8% in endodontics, and 28% in restorative dentistry. Most participants (84.67%) stated the ne-cessity of using rubber dams during post and core procedures. A total of 53.67% had received enough train-ing for using rubber dams during their undergraduate/residency education. The majority of participants (41%) also preferred using rubber dams during the prefabricated post and core procedures, and 28.33% stated that the remaining tooth structure was one of the major reasons for not using rubber dams during the post and core procedures.Conclusions: Workshops and hands-on training should be conducted among dental graduates to instill a positive attitude regarding the use of rubber dams.