Oral Health and Dental Management

Abstract

Oral healthcare professionals perceptions on prescribing mouthwash with insight into pre-procedural rinse.

Sushma Rudraswamy*, Jai Shankar Puttabuddi Hombarvali, Nagabhushana Doggalli

Mouthwashes claim to kill bacterial plaque, which causes periodontal diseases, dental caries and bad breath. The indications of mouthwashes include: Treatment of gingivitis, periodontitis and halitosis and maintenance of oral hygiene, particularly following periodontal and other oral surgical procedures or in mentally or physically disabled patients. Studying the effects of mouthwash and other oral antiseptic rinses on infectious viruses is not a novel idea. But amid the ongoing pandemic, fueled by a contagious pathogen often found in people’s mouths and noses, there is now great interest in this area and the present study aimed to explore oral healthcare professionals’ perceptions on prescribing mouth wash with insight into pre-procedural rinse during COVID-19. A descriptive cross-sectional study through Google forms was conducted, which included 20 questions, where 110 responses were recorded. The results showed that the majority of 90.9% prescribe mouthwash to their patients, significantly largest part of 93% prescribed to patients for periodontal aspect such as plaque control, gingivitis or periodontitis, the larger part of 67% for halitosis and lesser part of 2% for dental sensitivity. For the practice of mouth wash during the COVID-19 pandemic, more participants admitted to using pre-procedural rinses for patients in their clinic setting. They viewed this as decreasing oral bacterial load or preventing possible disease transmission with everyone staying inside or working from home during the lockdown. An outstanding 90% of oral healthcare professionals advised alternate home remedy measures to be followed in mouth rinsing.

The study shows that present-day oral health professionals are much more aware and prefer mouthwashes depending on the clinical condition. A significant percentage of them use pre-procedural rinses in practice for patients, which aims to reduce SARS-CoV-2 viral load and the cross-infection risk while treating patients during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Published Date: 2025-04-21; Received Date: 2024-07-15