Saira Afridi, Brekhna Jamil, Syed Imran Gilani.
Frequency of Musculo-Skeletal Pain in Dentists Working in Public and Private Sector Dental Hospitals of Peshawar, Pakistan.
J Pak Dent Assoc Jan ;21(4):197-201.

OBJECTIVE The objective of the present study was to determine the frequency of Musculoskeletal disorders that is backache, neckache and pain in fingers in Dentists working in Peshawar, Pakistan and to explore their association with gender of the dentist, number of working hours per day, number of patients treated per day, working posture and break between patients as well as duration of practice in years. METHODOLOGY This questionnaire based survey was conducted on 104 dentists working in the private and public sector dental hospitals of Peshawar through a self administered. The questionnaire consisted questions about pain in the back neck & fingers and the working habits of the dentists. Chi-square test was used to explore the relationship between musculoskeletal pains with other study variables. RESULTS Our sample consisted 66.1% general dentists and 43.9% specialists. There were 60 males (68.2%) and 28 females (31.8%). Almost 56% of the dentists experienced backache, 41% had pain in the neck while 32% hand pain in fingers. Backache was found to be significantly associated with working position, years in practice; number of patients treated per day and breaks taken between patients, neck pain was related to years in practice while finger pain was not fund to be associated with any of the variable studies. CONCLUSION Dentists working in teaching dental institutions of Peshawar, Pakistan experience pain in the back and neck musculature. This pain is related to working conditions of the dental practitioners.

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