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ASSESSMENT AND EVALUATION OF MUSCULOSKELETAL PAIN AMONGST PRECLINICAL AND CLINCAL DENTAL STUDENTS
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Thesis/Dissertation
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2025-05
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Oral Biology
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https://doi.org/10.34944/6g7a-5z68
Abstract
Purpose: To evaluate if there is a difference in musculoskeletal pain in preclinical students versus clinic students. It was hypothesized that clinic students would have greater ratings of pain based on prior research and due to the physical demands of dentistry.
Method: This study was approved by the institutional review board. Participants were recruited via email and eligible if they were a student at Temple dental school. In addition to demographic information, the primary outcome of interest was assessed using the Standardized Nordic Questionnaire. This questionnaire surveyed musculoskeletal symptoms in the last 12 months. Dependent variables included presence of musculoskeletal pain in regions of the neck, lower back, upper back, wrist, and shoulders. The data was analyzed by a dichotomous cross tabulation between the responses to presence of pain in the various body regions and the year of the respondents (D1, D2, D3, D4, post bac, post doc) and by clinic status (preclinic vs clinic). In addition, a dichotomous cross tabulation for the presence of pain was also applied to gender and race. Pearson’s chi squared test was used to evaluate the statistical significance of the dichotomous cross tabulations.
Results: Survey participants include 102 respondents from the post baccalaureate program, D1, D2, D3, D4, and graduate programs. The gender distribution included 36% males, 63% females, and 1% identified as non-binary. The majority of the participants were White/Caucasian (53%) and Asian (30%). Survey respondents had a mean age of 26.3 yrs and a standard deviation of 4.37 yrs. Higher pain values were reported for the neck, lower back, upper back, and shoulders for both preclinic and clinic students. There were no significant differences observed between pre-clinical and clinical students in terms of pain (all p’s > .05). However, there were trends such that clinical students reported higher pain in the neck (75.0% vs 65.1%), while pre-clinical students reported higher pain in lower back (65.1% vs 55.6%), and shoulders (67.4% vs 50%). In addition, there were no significant differences reported amongst respondents based on gender and race (all p’s > .05). However, females tended to experience higher pain values, wrist (45.3% vs 33.3%), shoulder (60.9% vs 45.9%), neck (71.9% vs 62.2%), upper back (68.8% vs 47.2%), and lower back (65.6% vs 47.2%).
Conclusion: Dental students indicated presence of pain in neck, lower back, upper back, and shoulders. While there were no significant differences, trends emerged related to gender and year in school. There were limitations of this survey research due to small sample size and self-reported input.
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