Baseline investigation of contamination situation of dental unit waterlines in department of stomatology of medical institutions in Jiangsu

OBJECTIVE To investigate the contamination situation of dental unit waterlines in department of stomatology in Jiangsu provincial medical institutions,explore the causes,and to provide the scientific evidence for the prevention and control of heathcare-associated infection.METHODS A tertiary hospital and a second-level hospital were selected as the surveillance points according to good compliance in whole Jiangsu province.We detected the total-bacterial-count and total-fungi-count of waterline to evaluate the contamination situation of dental unit waterlines in department of stomatology.RESULTS In all,eleven provincially administered municipalities were included in the analysis and 275 samples were assayed(dental hand-piece water: 154 samples;dental washing water: 121 samples).Bacterial count in total was(2800±27166)CFU/ml,and fungi count in total was(300±11351)CFU/ml.Meanwhile,bacterial count in tertiary hospital was significantly higher than that of in second-level hospital(P=0.002).Interestingly,we found that bacterial count of dental hand-pieces water was significantly higher than that of dental washing water(P0.001),which also proved in the subgroup analysis according to different level of hospitals.Negative pathogenic bacteria were detected in all available samples.CONCLUSION The cleaning and disinfection of waterline of dental units should be strengthened,monitoring periodically,and replacing the salvage filter in time can reduce the morbidity of healthcare-associated infection among dental patients.