title: Psychosomatic symptoms among female unpromoted general practice dentists.
abstract: Unpromoted female general practice dentists have a working situation with hard work conditions. The aim of the present study was to describe the perceived health for unpromoted female general practice dentists in comparison with others having a somewhat similar working situation. Questionnaires were sent to all unpromoted female general practice dentists (n = 183) within the Public Dental Health Service in a region in Sweden. The response rate was 94%. Comparisons have been done with personnel in the Social Insurance Organization in Sweden and Children Clinics in the Public Health Care in a region in Sweden. The dentists in this study suffered from many physical and mental troubles and also linked them to the working situation. They reported high prevalences of tiredness (70%) and back, neck and shoulder pain (76%) and related these symptoms to the job situation in 83% and 95%, respectively. The study showed statistically significant differences (p < or = 0.0001) in the comparison between all the samples that were investigated. In conclusion, the results show problems concerning self-perceived health for the unpromoted female dentists. We have shown that they are feeling unhealthy, worse than other high-risk-groups in a human service working situation, and they suffer from a multitude of problems also connected to their working environment.
authors.affiliation: Department of Oral Public Health, Center for Oral Health Sciences, Malmö University, Malmö, Sweden. karin.hjalmers@od.mah.se
authors.forename: Karin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Hjalmers
authors.forename: Björn
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Söderfeldt
authors.forename: Björn
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Axtelius
mesh_terms: D002322:Career Mobility; D003816:Dentists, Women / Q000523:psychology*; D005221:Fatigue; D005260:Female; D005792:General Practice, Dental; D006261:Headache; D006801:Humans; D009140:Musculoskeletal Diseases; D010146:Pain; D011602:Psychophysiologic Disorders; D012647:Self-Assessment; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013548:Sweden