No abstract

Physical and psychosocial stressors in dental schools are associated with adverse health outcome, including low back pain. The aim of this study was to evaluate the physical itness course included in a dental school's curriculum with regard to prevention of low back pain. Ninety irst-year and sixty-two inal-year dental students completed an anonymous questionnaire on physical itness habits and low back pain. Fifty voluntarily participated in the Åstrand bicycle ergometer test. The questionnaire revealed that 37 percent of the students have weekly physical exercise only during the physical itness course included in the curriculum and 62.5 percent of the students reported low back pain. Final-year dental students had signiicantly more low back pain than irst-year dental students (r=0.21, χ 2 =7.91, p=0.005). Female students had signiicantly more low back pain than male students (r=0.28, χ 2 =6.61, p=0.0101). The Åstrand test revealed that students who attended the physical itness course had signiicantly better physical itness (p=0.008) than those who did not. Students who exercised more regularly had signiicantly less low back pain (r =-0.19, χ 2 =11.89, p<0.01) than those who did not. We conclude that participation in a physical itness course leads to improved low back health for dental students and may prevent low back pain among inal-year dental students. Dr. Peros is Research Fellow,

Both ESS and STOP questionnaires successfully distinguished healthy subjects from subjects with OSAS. The STOP questionnaire had better probability to correctly predict high-risk patients for OSAS compared to ESS. We propose that the STOP questionnaire could be used as an easy-to-use and accurate screening tool in identification of patients with risk for OSAS in the general population, but it has not been tested in the Croatian population yet.

Self-reported academic performance of dental students in Croatia is associated with timing of sleep and wakefulness, rather than with total sleep time duration.

Anaesthesiologists' 24 h working day in the emergency department altered cognitive and psychomotor function in comparison with ordinary working days. Speed, reliability and mental endurance (measured by TTST) were significantly impaired in all four tests. Stability and reaction time (measured by total variability) were only slightly impaired. Paradoxically, attention and alertness (measured by total number of errors) were not adversely affected. In conclusion, anaesthesiologists' psychomotor performance was impaired during the single 24 h shift.