• Mohammad Aljanakh, Sameer Shaikh, Ammar Ahmed Siddiqui, Moazzy Al-Mansour, and Syed Sirajul Hassan.
• Dr. Sameer Shaikh, Department of Oral Diagnosis and Oral Medicine,, College of Dentistry,, University of Ha'il,, PO Box 2440 Ha'il,, Saudi Arabia, M: 966-530-935-057, smrshaikh@gmail.com.
• Ann Saudi Med. 2015 Nov 1; 35 (6): 456461456-61.

Background And ObjectivesDentists suffer a high prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) but studies are quite limited. The present study was carried out to investigate the prevalence of MSDs among dentists in the Ha'il Region, Saudi Arabia.Design And SettingsA cross-sectional, questionnaire study was conducted among 80 licensed dentists af.filiated with the Ministry of Health (MoH), Ha'il Region, Saudi Arabia from January 2014-January 2015.Patients And MethodsA self-administered questionnaire, based on the Nordic Musculoskeletal Questionnaire (NMQ) was sent to participants after translation to Arabic. The questionnaire was delivered by mail with a prepaid return envelope.ResultsSixty-eight questionnaires (85%) were returned. The prevalence of MSDs among respondents was 77.9% (n=53) with the most commonly affected areas the lower back (73.5%) (39/53) followed by the neck (66%) (35/53) and the shoulders (43.3%) (23/53). Twenty-four (45.2%) of 53 respondents had experienced MSDs in the neck and lower back at the same time throughout the past twelve months. Nearly 85% (45/53) of respondents were found to have MSDs affecting two or more sites.ConclusionPrevalence of MSDs was high among dentists in the Ha'il region. Lower back, neck and shoul.ders were the most commonly affected body sites.

15 keywords...

hide…