[Prevalence of occupational accidents and related factors in students of dentistry].

OBJECTIVE Describe the prevalence of occupational accidents students of dentistry and associate it with factors of their clinical practice. METHODS Cross-sectional study, developed in a public university in the city of Cartagena in 2010. Participants included 213 students in l pre-clinics and clinics practice of dentistry, selected by simple random sampling. A self-administered questionnaire was applied to evaluate the occurrence of accidents as well as the associated factors. The data were analyzed by prevalence rates with confidence intervals of 95 %, using the chi2 test, with significance levels of 0.05. The Association Strength was estimated by OR and the multivariate analysis through nominal logistic regression. RESULTS The prevalence of occupational accidents is 46 %, the type of accident most often is prick (48.7 %), caused mainly by the Explorer (28.9 %). 58.1 % of the accidents are reported and continue care protocol. 87.7 % of the students enfold the needle after use. At bivariate level, only statistically significant association between occupational accidents and semester was presented, being more frequent for the more advanced semesters (p=0.004). CONCLUSIONS because of high prevalence of occupational accidents, it is necessary to insist on the implementation of strategies for safe and appropriate environments for the development of educational practices for students.