Sahibzada Nasir Mansoor, Omer Yousaf, Farooq A Rathore, Azad Ali Azad, Qamar Ishfaque.
Frequency of Musculoskeletal Disorders Among Dental Professionals at Armed Forces Institute of Dentistry.
J Pak Dent Assoc Jan ;22(3):185-8.

OBJECTIVE: To assess the frequency of musculoskeletal disorders among dental professionals working at a tertiary care dental institute. METHODOLOGY: A descriptive study was carried out at Armed forces institute of Dentistry between March 2011 to May 2011. All the doctors working in AFID were included in the study. Questionaire were administered to the doctors. It included questions about demographic information and questions regarding musculoskeletal pain disorders and their frequencies. The relationship between musculoskeletal disorders, working hours, and frequency of MSK disorders were assessed by using chi-square test. Value of p <0.005 was considered statistically significant.SPSS Version 15 was used to analyze the study. RESULT: Thirty five dentists filled the questionnaires. Twenty one were males and 14 females. Most of the dentists(97.1%) had experienced some form of musculoskeletal pain in the last 12 months. Twenty seven (77.1 %) had experienced MSK pain in the last seven days. Average number of days off work was 2.77 days per year. Frequency of different MSK pains in last twelve months was neck pain 28.6%(10), shoulder pain 28.6% (10), lower back 25.7% (9), wrist 11.4%(4) and knee 5.7% (2). Restriction from activities was experienced by 60 % of the dentists in the last 12 months. CONCLUSION: Musculoskeletal disorders are very common among dental professionals. It mainly involves the neck, shoulder, back and wrists. The probable associations are prolonged working hours, abnormal postures for extended period of time and lack of ergonomic awareness.

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