J Dent Oral Biol | Volume 7, Issue 2 | Research Article | Open Access
Maphefo Desiree Thekiso*
Department of Community Dentistry, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa
*Correspondance to: Maphefo Desiree Thekiso
Fulltext PDFBurnout syndrome is due to psychological exhaustion and diminished efficiency caused by prolonged exposure to stress. Dentistry is regarded as one of the most stressful occupation. The aim of the study was to investigate the prevalence of burnout and job-related stressors among dentists working in the public sector. A cross-sectional study of 50 dentists working in the public sector was conducted through the Maslach Burnout Inventory Survey focusing on the three subscales: Emotional Exhaustion (EE), Depersonalization (DP), and Personal Accomplishment (PA) were used. Median and interquartile range was used to present the average of the continuous MBI scores per subscale. The Fischer’s exact test was used to determine the association between two categorical variables and the p-value was set at p<0.05. The prevalence of high burnout was 14% and the mean EE score was 25.82, mean DP score was 9.82 and the mean PA score was 28.94. The high level of overall burnout was significantly associated with age and the mean scores of job-related stressors such as shortage of drugs and poor remuneration (p<0.05). Although a low percentage of dentists had high prevalence of burnout, it is important for Oral Health Managers to address the job related stressors in order to improve the quality of dental care and increase the job morale of the clinicians.
Burnout depersonalization; Emotional exhaustion; Maslach burnout inventory; Dentist
Thekiso MD. Burnout and Its Related Factors among South African Dentists. J Dent Oral Biol. 2022; 7(2): 1194. ISSN: 2475-5680.