Dentist’s work and the stress: theoretical considerations - doi:10.5020/18061230.2005.p50

Abstract

The activity of Dentistry is facing serious problems nowadays, which is projected in an unprecedented crisis. Dentists are suffering from decrease in income, reduction of the number of patients in the private clinic due to the decrease in the patients’ acquisitive power and the increase in the costs of materials and equipments imposed by new technologies. This work aims at making a reflection about the determinant factors of the stress affecting dentists who work full time. The results of the study showed that dentists with more than twenty years’ professional practice complain about diseases related to psychological stress such as postural disturbances, cervical column pains, persistent head-aches, arterial hypertension, depression, fibro-muscular pain, sexual activity upsets, heart attacks, breathing insufficiencies, precocious aging and cancer. Thus, it is concluded that the activities developed by those professionals bring serious psychological consequences demonstrated by the psychosomatic diseases they present. There is need to promote Health Education activities in order to improve the dentists’ self-esteem by means of discussions and reflections on those problems