Organizational types in relation to exposure at work and sickness - a repeated cross-sectional study within public dentistry

Objective: Organizations and state agencies that provide dental care continuously face various and novel demands related to the need for dental care. However, rearrangements of work tasks by reducing the number of tasks performed by dental personnel might make the work more monotonous, repetitive, and static within an organization. The aim of this study is to compare how two dental work organizations, with different staffing and clinic size, are perceived by dental personnel focusing on physical and psychosocial conditions, leadership, work ability and presenteeism in 2012 and 2014. Material and Methods: This repeated cross-sectional study included personnel from the Public Dental Service in Sweden. There were 282 dentists, dental hygienists, and dental nurses who answered a questionnaire 2012 and 299 in 2014. Results and conclusion: In 2012, nine per cent of medium clinics reported poor leadership compared with 27% in 2014. For large clinics, 17% perceived poor leadership in 2012 compared with 31% in 2014. A higher proportion of the employees reported presenteeism due to high physical load (43%) and high psychosocial load (21%) in 2014 compared with 31% and 13% in 2012. These results indicate the need for work place interventions promoting health among dental employees.