Professionals' Quality of Life of dentist who works in public and private health care facilities

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Professionals' Quality of Life of dentist who works in public and private health care facilities

https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-2570404/v1

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Background

Dentistry is a fascinating occupation but entails its own set of challenges. Long-term work and job stress can negatively impact dentists' physical and mental health, as well as their quality of life. The current study aimed to examine the professional quality of life of dentists who work in public and private healthcare facilities.

Methods

A cross-sectional study was conducted on 68 dentists. Data was collected using standard professional quality of life questionnaires and analyzed using descriptive statistics, independent t-tests, ANOVA, and a linear regression model.

Results

Participants' mean total professional quality of life score was 63.53, with a standard deviation of 18.29. As indicated by their scores, 27.9% (19 people) had a low level of professional quality of life, 20.6% (14 people) had an average level, and 51.5% (35 people) had a high level of professional quality of life. There was a significant relationship between income and type of organizational activity (P >0.05).

Discussion

Our result showed that more than half of dentists had a high level of professional quality of life. Considering the relationship between activity and income and the quality of life of public-sector dentists, it seems necessary to develop plans to improve the quality of their lives.

Professional Role

Quality of Life

Dentists

Organizations

Non-Governmental Organization

Governmental Organization

Dentistry is a fascinating occupation but entails its own set of challenges. Long-term work and job stress can negatively impact dentists' physical and mental health, as well as their quality of life [1, 2]. The prevalence of work-related stress among general dentists in a study was 58% and the most common causes of stress were maintaining high levels of concentration and time work pressure [3]. As a result of their high-stress levels, dentists are more prone to anxiety, alcoholism, sleep disorders, memory impairment, and musculoskeletal complaints, all of which are detrimental to their professional quality of life [2, 4, 5].

In recent years, there has been a lot of discussion about the professional quality of life. Professional quality of life refers to positive and negative feelings of persons about their work as a helper[6]. The professional quality of life measures the extent to which employees can meet their personal needs through their work experience at work. The personal feelings of each employee include a variety of factors related to their work, such as financial rewards, job benefits, job security, comparisons with employees from other organizations, working conditions, career opportunities, decision-making power, and relationships with colleagues and the organization[7, 8]. Research studies in a variety of medical fields have established that the quality of the work environment is a significant contributing factor to job motivation, job satisfaction, work participation, life satisfaction, happiness, and anxiety[9, 10].

Job satisfaction fosters a sense of pleasure, vitality, and motivation in dentists, which improves and advances their professional skills. Furthermore, job satisfaction leads to better patient care, which benefits both the doctor and the patient, and the dental care system [11].

According to a study, the majority of female graduated dental faculty had a low level of quality of life, and their work experience adversely influenced their lives as well as their working hours [12]. While many studies have been conducted in the field of job satisfaction, job burnout, and the general quality of life of dentists, the studies in the field of the professional quality of life are very limited. [8, 13]. Dental professionals provide vital services to people and communities, as well as being responsible for community health; however, researchers know very little about their professional quality of life among employed dentists in Zanjan a city in the northwest of Iran. The present study aimed to examine the professionals' quality of life of dentists who work in public and private healthcare facilities.

2.1. Setting and Participants

The current study was a cross-sectional study conducted in 2021 with the approval of the Ethics Committee of Zanjan University of Medical Sciences. The research setting consisted of private centers (private offices and clinics) and government centers (dental clinics and hospitals affiliated with Zanjan University of Medical Sciences, a city in northwest Iran). The research population consisted of all dentists working in these centers. Study inclusion criteria included having one year of clinical experience, and willingness to participate in this study. All dentists who had known physical or mental disability, a history of taking medication due to psychiatric illness, divorce, or death of loved ones within the preceding six months were excluded

Samples were selected using the convenience sampling method. A total of 76 dentists worked at private and government centers that were invited to participate in the study. After considering the inclusion criteria, 68 individuals qualified for the study.

2.2. Data Collection Tools

2.2.1. Demographic Characteristic Questions

Demographic Questions included age, gender, work experience, type of organizational activity, type of specialty, monthly income, marital status, and indigenousness

2.2.2. Professional Quality of Life Questionnaire

The Professional Quality of Life Questionnaire WRQoL-2 contains 32 questions on 5 Likert scales and 7 main components, including work-life balance, job satisfaction, job stress, control at work, and a final interpretation of professional quality of life satisfaction. A higher score indicates greater satisfaction with the professional quality of life. For the interpretation of each domain, the total score for the questionnaire was estimated on a scale of 0-100 [14]. The total questionnaire was scored in three levels. The scores between 23 and 71 were considered as low professional quality of life, 72 to 83 was a moderate level, and 83 to 115 was a high level of professional quality of life [15, 16]. Psychometric properties of the Persian version of the questionnaire were tested in Mazloumi's study and it has been approved with 24 items. In Mazloumi's study, Cronbach's alpha coefficient for the overall professional quality of life was 0.921, and for all its dimensions was between 0.639 and 0.970[17]. In this study, Cronbach’s alpha coefficient for the overall professional quality of life was 0.86.

2.3. Statistical analysis

Data were analyzed using SPSS software version 16. To determine the normality of the data, we used the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. The data were distributed normally. Descriptive statistics were used to describe demographic data. The association between demographic characteristics and professional life quality was examined using a linear regression model at a 95% confidence level. The independent t-test and ANOVA were used for comparing the mean score of professional quality of life and demographic factors.

3.1. Baseline Data

In general, the study participants were mostly between 34 and 25 years of age (48.5%), female (57.4%), employed in private centers (5/48%), general dentist (54.4%), with a sufficient income (45.6%), married (70.6%), and non-native (54.4%) (Table 1).

Table 1

Frequency distribution and percentage of participants' characteristics (n = 68)
Variable		Frequency	Percentage
Age	25–34	33	48.5
	35–44	24	35.3
	45–63	11	16.2
Gender	Woman	39	57.4
Gender	Man	29	42.6
Work history	5>	32	47.1
	5–15	28	41.2
	15<	8	11.8
Type of organizational activity	Private	33	48.5
	Governmental	17	25.0
	Private and public	18	26.5
Type of specialization	General	37	54.4
	Root canal treatment	3	4.4
	Prosthesis	4	5.9
	Children	2	2.9
	Radiology	4	5.9
	Orthodontic	5	7.4
	Gum surgery	5	7.4
	Oral and maxillofacial surgery	3	4.4
	Oral and maxillofacial disease	2	2.9
	Restorative	3	4.4
Monthly income	Enough	31	45.6
	Fair	12	17.6
	Good	19	27.9
	Very well	5	7.4
	Excellent	1	1.5
Marital status	Single	20	29.4
	Married	48	70.6
	Divorced	0	0
Being a native residency	Yes	31	45.6
Being a native residency	No	37	54.4

3.2. Participants' professional quality of life

Participants' mean total professional quality of life score was 63.53, with a standard deviation of 18.29. As indicated by their scores, 27.9% (19 people) had a low level of professional quality of life, 20.6% (14 people) had an average level, and 51.5% (35 people) had a high level of professional quality of life. Furthermore, among the components of professional quality of life, the domain of work-life control had the highest mean (67.15 ± 21.15), while the domain of work-home relationships had the lowest mean score (56.98 ± 22.88) (Table 2).

Table 2

Mean, standard deviation, and range of professional quality of life scores of participants (n = 68).
Professional life quality	Mean (Scale 100-0)	SD	Minimum	Maximum
Control at work	67.15	21.15	0	100
Public comfort and welfare	65.80	19.87	0	100
Homework communication	56.98	22.88	0	100
Satisfaction with profession and job	64.58	19.39	4.17	100
Stress at work	61.39	24.02	0	100
working conditions	61.27	23.42	0	100
Total quality	63.53	18.29	9.78	100

3.4. The relationship between demographic variables and professional quality of life

There was no significant difference between the professional quality of life and demographic factors (P-value 0.05). We found no significant relationship between the type of dentistry expertise and their professional quality of life (P-value > 0.05); however, radiologists had the highest average professional quality of life. Lastly, the results revealed that the professional quality of life was not significantly impacted by residency (P-value > 0.05), although native residency had a higher professional quality of life (Table 3).

Table 3

A comparison of the participants' average quality of professional life based on demographic characteristics.
Variable		The mean (0-100 scale)	SD	F	P-value
Age	25–34	64.55	20.03	1.05	0.355
	35–44	59.69	17.53
	45–63	68.87	13.42
Work history	5>	59.27	3.82	1.68	0.194
	5–15	67.19	2.75
	15<	67.79	4.37
Type of organizational activity	Private	68.21	17.18	4.20	0.019
	Governmental	53.19	20.49
	Private and public	64.73	14.71
Type of specialization	General	67.27	20.57	0.86	0.562
	Root canal treatment	63.76	22.01
	Prosthesis	66.03	6.66
	Children	43.47	1.53
	Radiology	68.20	12.11
	Orthodontic	58.04	16.63
	Gum surgery	53.26	16.76
	Oral and maxillofacial surgery	50.36	16.60
	Oral and maxillofacial disease	61.95	4.61
	Restorative	61.59	9.37
Monthly income	Enough	58.16	21.21	1.74	0.152
	Fair	65.94	15.45
	Good	67.44	12.03
	Very well	70.86	19.03
	Excellent	90.21	0.00
Marital status	Single	59.67	20.85	1.27	0.264
	Married	65.14	17.09
	Divorced	0	0
Sexuality **	Woman	61.64	18.17	-	0.327
Sexuality **	Man	66.07	18.45	-	0.327
Being native **	Yes	66.97	19.80	-	0.158
Being native **	No	60.66	16.64	-	0.158
** independent T-test, *ANOVA test

The linear regression model investigated the relationship between age, gender, background, income, type of activity, specialization, marriage, residency, and professional quality of life. The only factor that appeared to be significantly associated with the professional quality of life was income, which indicates that having a high-professional quality of life was OR = 0.27 times greater for people with a higher income (P = 0.0027) (Table 4).

Table 4

Relationship between participants' professional quality of life and demographic characteristics in the linear regression model
Variable	B	Beta	P value	95.0% Confidence Interval for B
Age	-3.504	-0.154	0.430	-12.328	5.320
Sexuality	-2.376	-0.070	0.582	-10.962	6.210
Work history	0.480	0.228	0.273	-0.389	1.348
The type of organizational activity	-1.189	-0.060	0.643	-6.290	3.912
Type of specialization	-0.125	-0.025	0.875	-1.711	1.460
Monthly income rate	4.274	0.276	0.027	0.504	8.044
Marital status	2.444	0.067	0.616	-7.257	12.145
Being native	-5.985	-0.178	0.233	-15.915	3.945

The purpose of this study was to investigate the professional quality of life of dentists working in the public and private sectors of Zanajn, a city located northwest of Iran. Dentists had a mean score of 63.53 ± 18.29 in the current study, indicating that the vast majority of participants had a high level of professional quality of life [16]. Shams al-Dini et al. 2020 found that the work quality of life of most general dentists in Kerman was moderate, which was lower than the current study[18]. The observed disparity is attributable to differences in research communities, data collection tools, and the threshold for determining the working quality of life. Shams al-Dini's research only included general dentists, whereas this research included both general and specialized dentists. A total assessment of the professional quality of life satisfaction was provided by measuring various aspects of work quality of life, including job satisfaction, working conditions, comfort, general well-being, work-family relationships, work stress, and control at work. According to the results, the domain of the home-work relationship has the highest score, while the domain of control at work has the lowest. It appears that dentists' home relationships have been affected the most.

Work, the most important aspect of a person's life, necessitates a significant amount of time, energy, and skills for them to be financially independent as well as physically, mentally, and socially healthy. Having a positive attitude towards work can significantly impact the quality of life. Some studies have found positive relationships between professional and individual quality of life, which is consistent with the findings of the current study [19, 20]. Because of their profession and direct contact with patients, dental professionals are subjected to a wide range of stressors[21]. Additionally, there is a relationship between dentists' job stress and burnout that can negatively impact their professional quality of life[4]. Burnout is the polar opposite of job satisfaction. In the current study, more than 73% of dentists expressed satisfaction with the quality of their work. Nine studies found that dentists were generally satisfied with their jobs, with scores ranging from moderate to high. Specialist dentists were more satisfied than general dentists. Patient-physician relationships, respect, type of care, professional relationships among employees, and the professional environment were the most important factors influencing job satisfaction. The previous study's findings are consistent with the current study's findings[22]. Job satisfaction is an important consideration in employment decisions. Dentist immigration has become a new policy that some communities have struggled with in recent years. The first critical aspect of health policy is planning to improve dental workers' job satisfaction and, as a result, their overall quality of life at work.

A significant relationship was found between the type of organizational activity and dentists' professional quality of life (P = 0.019), with dentists working in private centers having a higher level of professional satisfaction. Furthermore, the linear regression model found that income was significantly related to professional quality of life, implying that high-income dentists have a 0.27 higher chance of being satisfied in their job. In the study of Shaban Nejad et al.[14], there was a significant correlation between physicians' professional quality of life and satisfaction with monthly salary and time of receipt. The salary was also identified as a significant factor influencing the professional quality of life in Shams al-Dini's study, a finding supported and consistent with the current study findings[18]. According to Mahmoud et al., study (30) work facilities influence work quality of life. Study results indicate that physicians' workplace satisfaction is positively correlated with their professional quality of life, implying that having more facilities will lead to increased quality of life; whereas, the study of Shabaninejad [14] found no significant correlation.

According to our findings, no significant relationship existed between other demographic variables and dentists' work quality of life. Shams al-Dini et al. 2020 discovered that dentists' work quality of life was statistically related to their economic status, marital status, and general health, which is consistent with the current study's results in terms of economic factors but not marital status[18]. In the non-dental research community, contradictory results have been reported, including studies by Shabani Nejad et al. [14] and Mahmoud et al. [23]. However, despite these differences, previous research has shown that demographic factors can influence the professional quality of life, which public health planners and policymakers should consider.

4.1. Study limitations

The information was gathered through self-reporting. Moreover, because there was no specific questionnaire on dentists' quality of life, a general form was applied. It is advised that the current study's findings be used and generalized in light of the aforementioned limitations.

Professional Quality of Life Questionnaire - WRQoL

Ethics approval and consent to participate

The present study is taken from the research project. All procedures were following the ethical standards of the Regional research committee. The protocol of the current study was approved by the ethical committee of the Zanjan University of Medical Science with the registration code IR.ZUMS.REC.1399.127. Written informed consent has been obtained from all participants.

Consent for publication

Not Applicable

Availability of data and materials

The dataset used in the present study is available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request

Competing interests

No potential conflict of interest relevant to this article was reported

Funding

This study was based on a project approved by the Zanjan University of Medical Sciences with the code A-11-978-11.

Authors' contributions

The conception and design of the study were undertaken by Robab Noormohammadi and Tooba Ghoflgari. Robab Noormohammadi was the supervisor who also contributed to the design of the study and reporting of the results. Mehran Faghfouri contributed to the data collection. Analysis, interpretation, and reporting were supervised by Azam Maleki. All authors contributed to the drafting and revising of the article and agree with the final version of the manuscript to be submitted to the journal; they also meet the criteria of authorship.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the Zanjan University of Medical Sciences, and the vice-chancellor of research and technology for their financial support to carry out the study. We would like to thank the dentists for their participation.

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No competing interests reported.

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You are reading this latest preprint version

Professionals' Quality of Life of dentist who works in public and private health care facilities

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Version 1

Abstract

1. Background

2. Methods

2.1. Setting and Participants

2.2. Data Collection Tools

2.2.1. Demographic Characteristic Questions

2.2.2. Professional Quality of Life Questionnaire

2.3. Statistical analysis

3. Results

3.1. Baseline Data

3.2. Participants' professional quality of life

3.4. The relationship between demographic variables and professional quality of life

4. Discussion

4.1. Study limitations

5. Conclusion

Abbreviations

Declarations

References

Additional Declarations

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