PREVALENCE OF NECK AND BACK PAIN AMONG PAEDIATRIC DENTISTS

Abstract

Occupational diseases are present worldwide. Dentists believe that they are at a higher risk for development of musculoskeletal disorders due to the postures attained at work. Hence, we conducted a study for understanding the prevalence of such ailments amongst the paedodontist population. We employed a cross-sectional study of 270 paedodontists who were selected at random and were asked to complete a self-administered questionnaire. The questions were about personal characteristics, job history, specific work habits and mostly pertaining to clinical dentistry with details of any recent occurrence of neck or back pain. Results tabulated showed a 79.6 % of the paedodontists reported having experienced at least one episode of neck or back pain in the immediate past 12 months. This value is way above the occurrence of similar complaints seen among the general population which is estimated to be around 55%. The study concluded indicating that the incidence of neck and back pain among dentists is higher than general population. This may be attributed to extreme postures that may be attained during the clinical work and which may be extreme in paediatric dentists.