Factors that affect health and well-being in dental hygienists; a comparison of Swedish dental practices.
OBJECTIVE
This study was designed to focus on the health and well-being of dental hygienists as a function of work environment and background.


METHODS
A questionnaire was mailed to 471 randomly selected dental hygienists from members of the Swedish Dental Hygienists' Association (SDHA) to collect data on health, demographics, lifestyles, and working conditions in various delivery systems. Seventy-seven percent responded.


RESULTS
Small dental practices were associated with better job control, work relations, management support, and development of job skills. In contrast, large practices were associated with higher finance-related and personal job demand, anxiety, collegial pressure, and demands on social job skills. In discriminant analysis, finance-related job demands, physically demanding patients, and colleague cooperation showed significant differences in working condition variables between the delivery systems and dental practices. Dental hygienists' control over their job functions and the clarity of information explained by management had a variance in the applied competencies dimension by 41 percent. Thirty-seven percent of the variance of musculoskeletal problems in the upper-body region were attributed to physical exposure from clinical job tasks, work breaks, and anxiety over role competition with dentists.


CONCLUSIONS
More job control and clearer information from management enables dental hygienists to optimally apply their competencies in the workplace. Physical job exposure, such as demands on manual/motor job skills, should be decreased and work breaks, as well as working relationships, with dentists should be improved to promote health and well-being.
Ylipää
V
V
Department of Medicine, Karolinska Institutet in Huddinge, Sweden.
Arnetz
B B
BB
Preber
H
H
D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D003756:Dental Hygienists; D016002:Discriminant Analysis; D017598:Efficiency, Organizational; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007588:Job Satisfaction; D016014:Linear Models; D008297:Male; D009140:Musculoskeletal Diseases / Q000209:etiology; D011215:Practice Management, Dental; D017009:Professional Autonomy; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013548:Sweden; D017132:Workplace