Dentistry is a profession in the field of medicine that studies the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of various infections and conditions that affect the oral cavity such as the oral mucosa, tissue, and jaw disorders among other conditions. Dentistry professionals include dentists and other dental team members such as dental assistants, technicians, therapists, and hygienists. The dentistry team should raise awareness on the problems they face and come up with the solutions to curb them. These problems limit the dentists or rather discourage them from performing their duties appropriately.
Most of the problems they face include the ease of contracting communicable diseases, and depression. Therefore, despite dentistry being the most popular medical fields globally, there are physical and psychological health problems like musculoskeletal complications and stress that affect the dental staffs hence they need to be addressed. This paper gives the outcomes of research to identify the common occupational hazards in dentistry and to determine how the dental team can prevent from these types of the occupational risks.
Issues in Dentistry
Dental professionals face several challenges in their profession that fall into two categories that include physical health problems and psychological issues. However, measures have been to prevent these types of occupational hazards. There are the Hepatitis B vaccination, advance in education, and sound infection control practices that have been considered to reduce these occupational hazards (Ayatollahi et al. 1). Additionally, dentists are advised to be aware of appropriate sterilization as well as individual protective measures to reduce the risks.
Physical Health Issues in Dentistry
The physical health hazards comprise of exposure to infections such as HIV/AIDS, viral hepatitis, and eye and ear diseases among other physical health infections (Ayatollahi et al. 1). Some of the treatment objects such as needles spatter and other sharp objects can easily transmit diseases. For instance, HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis B are easily transferable via laboratory and treatment instruments. Furthermore, some of the objects used by dentistry professionals during treatment have allergic reactions to their bodies. For instance, gloves made of latex cause majority of skin complications.
Moreover, dental instruments and equipment such as solvents, lubricating oils, and X-ray chemicals can lead to skin infections (Ayatollahi et al. 1). Other physical health problems linked to dentistry include mercury infections, ionizing and non-ionizing radiations, and aesthetic problems. Additionally, dental staffs strain a lot during procedures. It is a difficult posture to sit or stand close to a patient that is in a lying or sitting position. Therefore, the dental staffs are prevalent to develop musculoskeletal complications just like most other health care workers. They include low back pains, hand, and wrist pains, as well as neck and shoulder pains.
Psychological Problems in Dentistry
Apart from the physical health concerns, dentistry professionals face some mental problems with affect their health. Risk factors have an impact on the mental conditions of the dentists such as stress, emotional problems, depersonalization, tension, and depression among others (Brodtkorb et al. 633). Dentistry proves to be a stressful practice according to an interview carried out to collect findings from a group of dentists of Bruce Marshall Dental Hospital online (Prasanna et al. 71). Some of the questions conveyed to the panel of dentists to seek their response include the sources of stress in their practice, the mental struggles involved in dentistry, emotional challenges, and commitments and physical demands of the profession. According to the responses from interviewed dentists, several facts reveal themselves, for example, the dentists claimed that tight and unstable schedules, hefty workload, and anxious patients are the leading stress causes in their professional. Bruce Marshall dental hospital is accessible through the address 55 US-9W, West Haverstraw, NY 10993, United States. Other factors that contribute to psychological problems include low autonomy, imbalances between power and responsibility. Besides, the role of teaching may increase the extent of stress to the dentists since the majority of them cannot handle dual jobs (Perdigão, Jorge, Duarte Jr and Gomes 1206). Control strategies are necessary to help dentistry professionals to deal with these problems.
Solutions to Physical Health Problems of Dentistry
Since the physical health conditions and psychological problems tend to affect the operations of dentists in hospitals, several strategies are necessary to ensure that these challenges have immediate solutions (Scully 713). Firstly, dentists should use latex gloves and other protective gears to make sure that they protect themselves from spreading maladies such as HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis B among other diseases. However, some of the latex gloves are fatal to human skin since they contain natural rubber that contains latex protein, which can cause allergic reactions to human the skin. Therefore, dentists should adopt the use of latex gloves with reduces allergen content to reduce the allergic reactions. Both dentists and patients ought to use eye protection gears since most of the instruments used in dentistry pass near the eye (Ayatollahi et al. 1). The eye protection gears help protect both the patients and the dentists from splatter and debris that can harm the eyes. To curb the problem of destructive and destructing noises in the dental practice, dentists should utilize the services of ear protection gears.
Solutions to Psychological Problems of Dentistry
Recent studies and research reveal that dentists are victims of several psychological and emotional complications (Montagner et al. 668). Some of the stress-caused physical and emotional complications are high chances of cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, ulcers, eyestrain, alcoholism, depression, and suicidal thoughts among others. Because total eradication of stress from the dental profession is not possible, there is a need to minimize stress-related complications. The first step in stress management is to identify and comprehend the causes and effects (Lang 1). After identification of the causes, preventive measures are necessary to reduce the stress. Firstly, the dentists should improve their professional environment by ensuring sharing of tasks in the dental practice instead of heaping a lot of work on one dentist. Secondly, dentists should learn to handle patient anxiety and aggression without overreacting (Brodtkorb et al. 638). Also, dentists should operate on a favorable schedule that allocates reasonable working hours to the dentists and time breaks to enable them to take some days to help them relax and have a rest. Dentists should avoid multitasking since it leads to hefty workload whose management is a tough task.
Conclusion
Dentistry is among the most common fields of medicine globally. However, dentistry faces tough, physical health complications and psychological problems that need various solutions. The problems that dentists face in their practice are both physical health complications and psychological problems. Some of the dentists perform their occupation at their private capacity whereas other work in hospitals. Identification of the problems affecting dentistry and the solutions to these problems are equally important. Ultimately, through this I-Search paper, one can learn about the challenges faced by dentists in their field of practice and the possible solutions they can use to unravel these problems.
Works Cited
Lang, Randy. "Stress In Dentistry — It Could Kill You!" Oral health group, (2007):1. Web. 25 Apr. 2016.
Ayatollahi, Jamshid et al. "Occupational Hazards to Dental Staff." Dental Research Journal, (2012):1. Web. 25 Apr. 2016.
Brodtkorb, Kari, et al. "Ethical Challenges in Care For Older Patients Who Resist Help." Nursing Ethics 22.6 (2015): 631-641. Academic Search Premier. Web. 25 Apr. 2016.
Montagner, Anelise F., et al. "Behavior of Failed Bonded Interfaces under In Vitro Cariogenic Challenge." Dental Materials 32.5 (2016): 668-675. Academic Search Premier. Web. 25 Apr. 2016.
Perdigão, Jorge, Sillas Duarte Jr., and George Gomes. "Direct Resin-Based Composite Restorations — Clinical Challenges." Journal Of Adhesion Science & Technology 23.7/8 (2009): 1201-1214. Academic Search Premier. Web. 25 Apr. 2016.
Prasanna, Jammula Surya, et al. "Women Dentists: Changing The Face Of Dentistry." Journal Of Oral Research & Review 7.2 (2015): 69-73. Academic Search Premier. Web. 25 Apr. 2016.
Scully, Crispian. "Occupational Hazards." Scully's Medical Problems in Dentistry (2014): 713-729. Web.
