PREVALENCE OF WORK-RELATED MUSCULOSKELETAL DISORDERS AMONG DENTAL STUDENTS IN SOUTHERN KARNATAKA DISTRICT

Background: Musculoskeletal disorders are common amongst dental personnel including dental students when they are still in educational programs due to their work in a static posture. The objective of the study is to identify work-related musculoskeletal disorders in terms of perception of pain and stiffness experienced by the dental students and interns and to find the association between pain, stiffness and selected socio demographic variables. Methods: A total of 236 subjects were selected from Yenepoya Dental College, Manipal Institute of Dental Sciences and A B Shetty Memorial Institute of Dental Sciences, Mangalore. The subjects were selected by using convenience method and were given closed-ended questionnaire to find perception of pain and stiffness experienced. Results: The study revealed that 51.3% of dental students sometimes had pain in lower back and 44.4% in neck. 20.3% of subjects complained of having sometimes stiffness in neck and 19.9% of them had in lower back. It was observed that number of workdays per week had significant association (p=0.01) with increase in frequency of pain. Frequency of stiffness was significantly associated with height (p= 0.02) and weight (p= 0.02). There was also significant association between intensity of pain and average number of work days per week (p= 0.017) and average number of patients treated per day (p= 0.012). Conclusion: The study revealed that WMSDs are prevalent in dental students and interns. A significant association was found between musculoskeletal symptoms and socio-demographic variables like gender, height, weight, number of workdays per week and number of patients treated per day. Keywords: Musculoskeletal disorders, frequency of pain, frequency of stiffness, intensity of pain, dental students, interns