Prevalence and Effect of Workplace Stress Among Pediatric Dentists

Overview

Work-related stress is a pattern of physiological, emotional, cognitive and behavioural reactions to some extremely taxing aspects of work content, work organization and work environment. Certain work situations are too intense and frequent in nature that exceed an individual's coping capabilities and resources to handle them adequately Dentistry is commonly known as a stressful profession among various occupations. Frequent dealing with different types of patients, working in a very small area for long period of time , exposure to toxic substances , all these factors put the dentist under stress. Adding to the previous factors, working to uncooperative children with annoying parents, will put pediatric dentistry on the top of the most stressful branches in dentistry. Stress can affect pedodontists physiologically by increasing their blood pressure, heart rate, breathing rate and excessive sweating which in turn may increase the risk of hypertension and breathing problems.

All Paricipants were informed about the objectives of the study and signed an informed consent before participating in the study. On the day of work, blood pressure and heart rate will be measured for every pediatric dentist at the beginning of the day before starting any case and will be measured again after 3 hours from continuous work. Then, the two readings will be recorded and compared. This part will help in the physiological assessment of the study. The psychological part will be assessed by asking the pediatric dentists to answer the questions of the 2 scales. {Appendices (2 \&3)} There will be a specially designed chart for fulfilling the aim of the study designed by the main investigator, this recording chart is formulated to collect the data from the participants. The recording chart is composed of 3 sections: The First Section includes sociodemographic data The Second Section includes psychological assessment in which the score gets by each participant is recorded. The Third Section includes physiological assessment in which the first and second readings of heart rate and blood pressure are recorded and inspected for any change.

Conditions