Ergonomic Analysis of Repetitive Physical Workload in Dental work

ABSTRACT: The aim of this study is to determine musculoskeletal discomfort among dentists based on discomfort occurence in last 12 months and 7 days. The other goal is to identify musculoskeletal discomfort locally which has been occuring in dentists and examine the degree of influence to dentists. In this scope of study, a questionnaire survey is created and fulfilled by 67 dentists. The questionnaire survey is published on a website as a link form in order to reach dentists in various universities of the dentist group. Except for a small number of questionnaires filled out manually, it has been imported into the system. Survey results revealed that, Dentists’ most commonly used position of the dentist while performing their profession was static, and prolonged sitting / standing position. Occurence of musculoskeletal discomfort in the last 12 months has seen mostly in neck, hand / wrist, upper back, and shoulder regions. Musculoskeletal discomfort seen mostly during the last 7 days as in elbows, feet, hip, and wrist / hand regions. Electromyographic studies were applied on three dentists. These tests consist; endodontic treatment, dental filling therapy, fix prosthodontic, removable prosthodontic, dental examination, tooth cleaning treatment, and tooth extraction. In addition, the muscles activities are analyzed from six different region of the body which is determined based on questionnaire result. Hypothesis testing was established for the analysis of electromyographic data which were collected from participant dentists while applying 7 different tasks (endodontic, dental filling therapy, tooth extraction, dental examination, and removable prosthodontics treatments). In most tests, hypothesis was rejected. As a result, discomfort occurrence in the body of the participants is observed which caused by the seven tasks. Finally, ANOVA was constructed and results were examined based on interaction between body and seven dental tasks which caused the discomforts in the dentists. Keywords: Musculoskeletal discomfort, Dentists, electromyogram. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………