title: An assessment of career satisfaction among Macedonian dentists.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The aim of this study was to assess the level of overall career satisfaction in relation to various personal and work-related factors among the dentists in the Republic of Macedonia.
  
  
  METHODS
  The sample comprised 118 registered dentists, working in different conditions (34 public practice dentists, 32 completely private, 42 private dentists who work with a health insurance fund and 10 concessioners). All of them filled in a questionnaire which contained 16 items, divided into five groups. The different clusters of questions were related to various working conditions and personal factors. The first four groups of questions were answered with a--point Likert format with a score range from 1 (very dissatisfied) to 4 (very satisfied). In the fifth group, dentists chose one of four offered answers. The statistical analyses were made by one-way ANOVA and chi-square tests.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Significant differences related to working conditions were found between public practitioners (moderately dissatisfied) and private practitioners (very satisfied) (F=41.41 (df=3); p<0.01). A high prevalence of dentists (89.83%) had felt stressed on their work place and 61.8% of public dental health practitioners had felt stressed at work "very often". The main sources of job-related stress for public dental practitioners were their supervisors (50%) and patients (26. 47%), while private practitioners were mostly stressed by inspectors (76.19%) and patients (21.87%) (χ2=44.5 (df=9); p<0.01).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The findings in our study showed overall low levels of career satisfaction among the dentists (public and private) in the Republic of Macedonia. The finding that high percentages of dentists feel stress at their work place very often requires further exploration.
authors.affiliation: University Dental Clinical Centre, Faculty of Dental Medicine, Ss. Cyril and Methodius University, Skopje, R. Macedonia.
authors.forename: Julijana
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Nikolovska
authors.forename: Sanja
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Mancevska
authors.forename: Biljana
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Kapusevska
authors.forename: Lidija
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Popovska
authors.forename: Sonja
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Mindova
mesh_terms: D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D003815:Dentists / Q000523:psychology*; D005792:General Practice, Dental / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D007588:Job Satisfaction; D011636:Public Health Dentistry / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D018843:Republic of North Macedonia; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D017132:Workplace