gms | German Medical Science

14th Triennial Congress of the International Federation of Societies for Surgery of the Hand (IFSSH), 11th Triennial Congress of the International Federation of Societies for Hand Therapy (IFSHT)

17.06. - 21.06.2019, Berlin

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The prevalence of upper extremity musculoskeletal disorders among dental hygienist and students of dental hygiene

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  • presenting/speaker Shifra Netanely - Hadassah Medical Organization, Jerusalem, Israel
  • Shai Luria - Hadassah Medical Organization, Jerusalem, Israel
  • Danit Langer - School of Occupational Therapy, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel

International Federation of Societies for Surgery of the Hand. International Federation of Societies for Hand Therapy. 14th Triennial Congress of the International Federation of Societies for Surgery of the Hand (IFSSH), 11th Triennial Congress of the International Federation of Societies for Hand Therapy (IFSHT), 11th Triennial Congress of the International Federation of Societies for Hand Therapy (IFSHT). Berlin, 17.-21.06.2019. Düsseldorf: German Medical Science GMS Publishing House; 2020. DocIFSHT19-1050

doi: 10.3205/19ifssh1488, urn:nbn:de:0183-19ifssh14883

Published: February 6, 2020

© 2020 Netanely et al.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. See license information at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

Outline

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Objective: The purpose of the study was to evaluate the prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders (MSD) among dental hygienists in comparison with dental hygiene students. In addition, we planned to examine the possibility that the MSD reported by dental hygiene students are due to the workload of any student. Therefore, we compared the MSD complaints of hygiene students to a control group of other students.

Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study consisted of 85 dental hygienist, 17 dental hygiene second year students and a control group of 103 undergraduate students in a non-clinical track. The participants completed a demographic questionnaire, the Nordic Musculoskeletal Questionnaire (NMQ) (Kuorinka 1987) and the numeric pain scale. We used Welch's t-test to compare the prevalence of MSD and pain between the groups.

Results: 61% of the participants reported an MSD in the upper extremity. Reports were most common in the shoulder (44%), wrist (39%) and elbow (15%). This tendency was seen in all three groups. No significant differences (p>.05) were found between the dental hygienist group (mean=3.6 SD=2.2; mean=2.2 SD=1.9) and dental hygienist students (mean=3.7 SD=1.8; mean=1.8 SD=1.4) in the number of body parts with MSD or pain intensity, respectively. Significant differences (p<.05) were found between the dental hygienist students and control group (mean=2.7 SD=1.7; mean=1 SD=1) in number of body parts with MSD and pain intensity, respectively.

Conclusions: The results suggest that dental hygienists and dental hygiene students are at high risk of developing MSD. The high prevalence of MSD among hygiene students stress the need for planned early intervention, prior to the initiation of fieldwork.