It is not just about occupation, but also about where you work

Objectives: Dentistry is characterized by a meaningful but also stressful psychosocialworking environment. Job satisfaction varies among staff working under differentorganizational forms. The aim of this study was to identify (i) to what extentcrucial psychosocial work environment characteristics differ among occupations ingeneral public dental clinics in Sweden, and (ii) how much of the variation withineach occupation is attributable to the organizational level.Methods: All staff (N=1782) employed in four public dental organizations receivedan email with personal log-in to an electronic questionnaire based on the CopenhagenPsychosocial Questionnaire. After two reminders, a response rate of 75%was obtained. Responses from 880 nonmanagerial dentists, dental hygienists anddental nurses working in general practices were included in our analyses.Results: First, we compared the three dental occupations. We found that jobdemands, task resources (eg influence, possibilities for development and role clarity),strain symptoms and attitudes to work differed among occupations, dentists havingthe least favourable situation. Next, we compared the four organizations for eachoccupational group, separately. For dentists, a significant and relevant amount ofvariance (P.05) was explained by the organizational level for 15 of 26subscales, least pronounced for task resources. By contrast, for dental nurses andhygienists, the corresponding number was 2 subscales of 26. The psychosocialworking environment of people working at the organization with the highest levelsof strain indicators and the least positive work-related attitudes differed systematicallyfrom the organization with the most favourable profile, in particular regardingjob demands and leadership aspects.Conclusion: In conclusion, the psychosocial working environment depended to a largedegree on occupation and, for dentists in particular, also on their organizational affiliation.The findings suggest a potential for designing interventions at organizational levelfor improvements of the psychosocial working environment for dentists