The association between Antonovsky's sense of coherence and job stress among dental hygienists in Korea.

OBJECTIVE

High stress levels experienced by medical professionals are a well-established phenomenon in current literature. However, there are few studies focusing on stress experienced in the field of oral health or on the sense of coherence (SOC) that helps to actively respond to job stress. The purpose of this study was to analyse if there is an association between SOC and job stress among dental hygienists in Korea.

METHODS

A cross-sectional study was conducted on a convenience sample of 441 dental hygienists in the Seoul Gyeonggi province, Korea. The independent variable was SOC which had three dimensions: comprehensibility, manageability and meaningfulness. The dependent variable was job stress, which was evaluated using the Korean Occupational Stress Scale Short Form. Confounding factors were age, marital status, educational background, type of hospital, and work experience. The chi-square test and t test measures were used for bivariate analysis. Multiple logistic regression analysis was performed to confirm the association between SOC and job stress. The collected data were statistically analysed using SPSS version 22.0.

RESULTS

The SOC score showed a significant difference in relation to the job stress score. The SOC score was high when the job stress was low (P < .001). Overall SOC scores showed an inverse correlation with job stress.

CONCLUSION

This study reports that a higher SOC is associated with lower job stress in Korean dental hygienists. Since a higher SOC in dental hygienists indicated that they could cope with job stress more positively, it is important to increase their SOC.