Abstract
Work-related commitments unavoidably interfere with the dentist's everyday life. Therefore, the objective of our study was to assess the impact that a dentist's occupation might have on the family well-being. The questionnaire was sent to all (N=2449) licensed dentists registered in the Lithuanian Dental Association (response rate, 68.2%). The data were analyzed by means of multiple logistic regression analysis. Most dentists reported difficulties in reconciliation of their professional activities and family life, i.e., insufficient time to spend with a family, necessity to reduce family leisure activities, neglected duties to the family, limited time for hobbies, and work-related anxiety and nervousness at home. These hazardous occupational effects were mainly related to long working hours, which negatively affected all areas of family life. Occupational hazards, particularly long working hours of dental practitioners, had negative effects on all areas of the dentist's family life. Although dentists frequently faced difficulties in reconciliation of their professional activities and their family interests, in general, they had quite a harmonious family life. The findings suggest that the focus should be on finding the ways to reduce working hours in order to facilitate the reconciliation of a successful dental practice and family life. Additionally, there might be other effective means, e.g., to cope with stress or to develop better working and leisure time management skills.
Highlights
Dentistry has been included in the category of stressful occupations
The findings suggest that the focus should be on finding the ways to reduce working hours in order to facilitate the reconciliation of a successful dental practice and family life
A substantial group of dental professionals were seniors; about the same number of them reported working for 20–29 years, 23% worked for 10–19 years, and 15% worked for less than 10 years
Summary
Dentistry has been included in the category of stressful occupations. Contractual working conditions in addition to the ever-increasing pressure to improve the quality of health service with a concomitant reduction of professional errors, fast work pace, stringent requirements concerning dentist-patient communication are just some of the numerous occupational risks which affect dentists’ physical health, mental health, and overall well-being [1,2,3]. A number of studies have reported a high prevalence of disorders among dental professionals such as jobrelated stress, tension, burnout, emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, depression, occupational musculoskeletal problems, allergies, and various infections [4,5,6,7,8]. A high prevalence of physical and mental complaints (i.e., negative occupational effects on the psychological well-being) of Lithuanian dentists has been previously reported, too [15,16,17].
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