Psychosomatic symptoms among female unpromoted general practice dentists.

Unpromoted female general practice dentists have a working situation with hard work conditions. The aim of the present study was to describe the perceived health for unpromoted female general practice dentists in comparison with others having a somewhat similar working situation. Questionnaires were sent to all unpromoted female general practice dentists (n = 183) within the Public Dental Health Service in a region in Sweden. The response rate was 94%. Comparisons have been done with personnel in the Social Insurance Organization in Sweden and Children Clinics in the Public Health Care in a region in Sweden. The dentists in this study suffered from many physical and mental troubles and also linked them to the working situation. They reported high prevalences of tiredness (70%) and back, neck and shoulder pain (76%) and related these symptoms to the job situation in 83% and 95%, respectively. The study showed statistically significant differences (p < or = 0.0001) in the comparison between all the samples that were investigated. In conclusion, the results show problems concerning self-perceived health for the unpromoted female dentists. We have shown that they are feeling unhealthy, worse than other high-risk-groups in a human service working situation, and they suffer from a multitude of problems also connected to their working environment.