Sources of occupational stress amongst dentistry academics

Abstract

Background Dentistry professionals may experience significantly higher occupational stress than other health professionals and dentistry academics may have specific work content and context sources of stress. Aims The aim of this study is to identify common sources of occupational stress, and how these are associated with wellbeing, in dentistry academics. Materials & Methods A cross‐sectional online survey with staff in Dentistry departments in Australia and New Zealand. Assessment included 23 items from five general domains of occupational stress from the NIOSH—Generic Job Stress Questionnaire, a 23‐item list of sources of stress and the 22‐item Psychological General Well‐Being Index. Analyses used descriptive statistics and multiple linear regression. Results A total of 107 respondents (average age 50 ± 11.7 years, 56.8% men) completed the survey. Leading sources of occupational stress were job future, time pressure at work, work overload, and administration demands. A multiple linear regression model significantly predicted wellbeing, F(8,77) = 13.141, p = .000, adj.R2 = .53, but there were no significant associations for any of the specific sources of stress. Conclusion The combination of time pressure, workload and responsibility, job dissatisfaction, low social support, and uncertain job future was inversely associated with wellbeing amongst these dentistry academics. Future studies should consider the development and evaluation of interventions to address these concerns.

Dentists’ attitudes toward patient-centered care and its predictors: a cross-sectional study in South Korea

“…The finding of this study reveals dentists’ patient-centered attitude cannot be simply reached through formal education alone [ 44 ], but also from post-graduate clinical experience. Second, efforts to investigate the hurdle for implementing SDM in dental practices are urgently needed, as it can lead to a dentists’ skeptical attitude toward SDM [ 49 – 51 ]. For instance, concerns about delivering SDM within the health system have been revealed due to high constraints of spending enough time with patients [ 12 ].…”