Correlação entre os índices de riscos ergonômicos, dor e qualidade de vida no trabalho dos profissionais da odontologia

Abstract

Like any other group of workers, dental professionals are exposed to several ergonomic risks during their work activities, mainly biomechanical ergonomic risks that are considered the main cause of musculoskeletal disorders, which may in some way impair their quality of life at work (QVT). The central problem of the work focuses on: At what level are the ergonomic risk factors affecting the pain synthetics of dentists and how are they compromising Quality of Life in the work of these workers? Thus, the objective of this study was to evaluate the level of correlation between the indices of the ergonomic risk factors, pain and QWL of dental professionals. This is an exploratory and descriptive study carried out with 42 dentists from the city of Ponta Grossa, a sample that was for accessibility, however distributed in the different specialties. For data collection, the RULA method was used for ergonomic postural evaluation, a questionnaire for sample cauterization, the Corlett and Manenica (DCM) diagram to identify the perception of pain and discomfort, and the TQWL-42 questionnaire to investigate the QVT. The statistical methods Anova and Mann Whitney were used. As a result, the RULA method calculated an average of 4.95 (± 0.764) of the ergonomic risk index for the sample. Regarding the perception of pain, according to the DCM, the general mean of the pain index was 35.10 (± 7.67), and the cervical region and upper back were the regions with the highest complaints considering that the 54, 76% and 47.62% of the dentists expressed feeling minimal moderate pain in these areas respectively. Regarding QWL, the general mean was 64.11% classified as satisfactory, but the biological-physiological sphere had one of the lowest indexes only 56%, the aspect with the lowest score was "physical and mental disposition" presenting an index of 53.57%. Statistical data show that there is no significant correlation (p = 0.078), but it showed an important correlation with the pain index in the cervical region (p = 0.01) region with the highest number of complaints of pain symptoms. The results show that there is no significant correlation between the general index of pain and the general index of QWL (p = 0.174), but there is a significant negative correlation with the Biological-Physiological sphere (p = 0.029). Despite the lack of a significant correlation, this study presents data showing a decrease in QOL index due to pain symptoms caused by exposure to the biomechanical ergonomic risks that dental professionals are exposed to.