ATOPIC-DERMATITIS, CONJUNCTIVITIS, AND HAND DERMATITIS AMONG SWEDISH DENTAL PERSONNEL, INCLUDING USE OF PERSONAL PROTECTIVE DEVICES

A previous study on dental personnel in northern Sweden show that dent ists had a significantly higher prevalence of self-reported and physic ian-diagnosed atopic dermatitis and conjunctivitis, compared to chair assistants and referents (Lonnrothz & Shahnavaz 1998). Further, signif icantly more male dentists reported experience of hand dermatitis comp ared to male referents. To compare the prevalence among dental personn el working in other geographical areas of Sweden, and survey the use o f personal protective equipment, a questionnaire study was conducted d uring 1997, which included all dentists and his/her chair assistants, working in general private and public dental care in Sweden. A total o f 7384 dental personnel were included in the study, 4293 dentists (54. 7% male and 45.3% female), and 3090 chair assistants. Logistic regress ion was used for analysing data. Results show that significantly more dentists reported symptoms of atopic dermatitis, conjunctivitis, and h and dermatitis, and had been diagnosed by a physician, compared to cha ir assistants. However, they did not report more sick-leave due to sym ptoms, compared to chair assistants. More female used protective devic es, than male, and more chair assistants than dentists. Significantly more dental personnel in public dental care used protective devices, t han in private dental care. Use of gloves, and face mask, decreased wi th increasing age but, use of eye protection, mainly in form of prescr iption spectacles, increased. The prevalence of hand dermatitis decrea sed significantly with increasing age but, more for female (p<0.0001), than for male (p=0.01).