EXPLORING POSITIVE PERCEPTIONS OF DENTAL WORK IN SWEDEN AND DENMARK

Objectives: Dentistry is an example of human service work, involving cognitively, emotionally and technically demanding tasks. These tasks are potentially implicative of negative as well as positive personal effects. The aim was to study work enjoyment, satisfaction with work, and good working life, comparing Danish and Swedish general dental practitioners.Materials and methods:In 2008, a questionnaire was sent to a randomly selected sample of practicing dentists in Sweden (n=900) and Denmark (n=937). The study was approved by the Swedish regional ethical board. Distribution analysis and Mann-Whitney U test were used for comparison between the groups Swedes/Danes, private-/public practitioners, and dentists with/without management responsibility.Results: Response rate was 68%, whereas 51% were Swedes and 49% Danes. Sixty percent had management responsibility and 40% had not. Further, 58% were private and 37% were public practitioners. Frequency analysis showed that almost three fourths of the dentists experienced a high or a very high degree of (1) work enjoyment (73%), (2) of satisfaction with their work as a whole (72%) and (3) of a good working life (74%). The items (1) and (2) showed differences between all three groups: Danes, private practitioners and dentists with management responsibility scored higher than their counterparts (p≤0.05). Item (3) showed similar results (p≤0.05), except for the comparison Danes/Swedes, which was non-significant.Conclusions: The initial results corroborate that Danish and Swedish dentists have positive perceptions of their work. The differences between the three groups are to be further studied to track potential correlations promoting positive perceptions of work. Funding: The Swedish Council for Working Life and Social Research, Malmö University, The Danish Dental Association