IMPACT OF CLINICAL WORKLOAD ON THE LIFESTYLE OF DENTAL PROFESSIONALS IN KARACHI

Abstract

The impact of clinical workload on the lifestyle of the dentists (including social, personal and overall mental and physical) was the core area of interest of this research. The objective of this online questionnaire based study was to determine the effect of clinical workload on the lifestyle of post graduate residents, dental faculty and general dentists in Karachi, Pakistan using Copenhagen Burnout Inventory. A cross-sectional study design and convenience sampling technique was used. A total of 124 dentists including faculty members, postgraduate residents and general practitioners working in clinics and hospital based setups of Karachi were included in the study. Data obtained from the questionnaires was analyzed by using SPSS ver.23. Most of the participants were in the practice between 5 to 10 years and worked for around 5-6 hours daily, treating 5 or more patients. The prevalence of burnout was found to be 71.9% amongst the postgraduate residents whereas faculty and GP showed a frequency of 58.8% and 48.5%, respectively. Burnout was found to have strong association with 5-10 years of practice among dental faculty (p = 0.002), whereas, general practitioners faced maximum burnout due to increased working hours (p = 0.038) and post graduate residents (p = 0.029) and general dentists (p = 0.004) felt stressed out after treating more than 5 patients per day. It was concluded in the present study that a high occurrence of burnout was found in the dentists of Karachi.