Abstract

DUARTE, Fátima  and  SERRANHEIRA, Florentino. Dental hygienists self-reported work-related musculoskeletal disorders symptoms and task demands. Rev. Port. Sau. Pub. [online]. 2015, vol.33, n.1, pp.49-56. ISSN 0870-9025.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rpsp.2014.10.003.

Objectives Work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WRMSDs) are among the most prevalent work-related diseases in dental hygienists (DH), reason for which we decided to conduct a national study to analyze the frequency of symptoms from these DH pathologies, looking for associations with their daily working tasks. Methods A questionnaire was sent to 415 DH, via the “survey monkey” web page getting a response rate of 61.2% (n = 254). Results Most WRMSD symptoms referred by this group were on the neck or cervical region (52%), wrist/hand (47.8%), dorsal (45.2%), lumbar (44.5%) and shoulder (44.9%). We observed that the daily working time influences the chance of occurrence of symptoms, mainly with tasks such as root planning or polishing for the cervical symptoms (OR = 2,337; p = 0,045 and OR = 8,909; p = 0,043), root planning for the shoulder symptoms (OR = 2,758; p = 0,022) and scaling and root planning for the wrist symptoms (OR = 9,797; p = 0,032 and OR = 2,527; p = 0,029), respectively. Conclusions This study suggests that WRMSDs are a real problem among Portuguese dental hygienists that needs to be addressed for an urgent intervention in a way to lower the prevalence of these diseases and to establish preventive strategies to minimize their impact in that group of health professionals.

Keywords : Work-related musculoskeletal disorders; Occupational health; Ergonomics; Dental hygienists.

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