The occupational role of dental conditions among a consecutive sample of Spanish workers.

OBJECTIVES

To assess the occupational impact of the mouth in terms of days of work loss in the last year and the perception of the working performance disturbance because of the oral conditions.

STUDY DESIGN

A consecutive sample (n=269) of the Regional Government staff of the province of Granada (Spain) was recruited. Participants were asked about work loss related to health problems in the past 12 months, capturing the aetiological entities, the frequency of the work absent and the total days loss. Also subjects reported if they believed that mouth affects their occupational performance, and if they have perceived difficulties for carrying out work because of the mouth. Data on sociodemographic, behavioural and clinical factors were also gathered. Chi-squared test, Odds ratio (OR) and relative risk (RR) of perceived occupational role were used to quantify the effect of the modulating factors.

RESULTS

Almost 40% of individuals were absent from work during the last year spending on average 5.4 days for recovering. Colds and musculoskeletal pathology were the major causes of sick leave. Dental disease caused short work absences (4 days on average) only in 2.8% of participants. However most of workers (62.5%) considered mouth to influence their occupational performance, mainly because of the pain-related events (61.7%), but only 4.1% of workers reported difficulties in carrying out their work in the past 12 months. Females (RR=1.3), participants attending regular dental visits (RR=1.4) and denture wearers (RR=2.5) were shown to have significantly higher risk of perceiving an occupational role of the mouth. Those workers reporting that mouth influences their work have significantly poorer oral health than counterparts.

CONCLUSIONS

Most workers considered that mouth influences their occupational performance but dental disease has demonstrated to be a minor occupational cause of sick leave in terms of prevalence and magnitude of work loss.