Abstract :
Hand washing is an important key factor to prevent transmission of infectious agents to patients. Antiseptics like triclosan and chlorhexidine gluconate are frequently used for both skin antisepsis. Natural products like betel leaf (Piper Betle Linn) have emerged with fewer side effects so that they can be considered safer, which has antiseptic properties. All Parts have antiseptic properties, including the essential oil whose main component consists of bethel phenol and several of its derivatives including cavibetol, alkaloids, flavonoids, tripenoids or steroids, saponins, terpenes, phenylpropane, terpinene, diastase, tannins, etc. The purpose of this research is to examine the effectiveness of betel leaf extract soap as an alternative to natural hand soap with chlorhexidine and triclosan. This research was conducted on oral and maxillofacial surgery residents who will become operators at the oral surgery clinic of Faculty of Dental Medicine of Airlangga University Surabaya. The operator's hands is swabbed before and after handwashing using three different kind of soap. Based on the Kruskal wallis overall there was no significant difference in the status of the number of bacteria between the chlorhexidine, triclosan, and betel leaf groups (p-0.368 or p>0.05). The significance value of the difference in the Mann Whitney test which was bigger than 0.05 (p>0.05) which is no difference colony count bacteria in every compared group of research. Conclusion of this research is betel leaf extract in the form of hand soap is as effective as the other two soaps which are chlorhexidine and triclosan which are exist already in market.
