Better early prevention: Dental student’s awareness of musculoskeletal disorders

Musculoskeletal disorders occur in 54-93% of dentists. Dental students are also at a high risk of developing MSDs as they also do the dentist works during professional training, and mainly owing to the deleterious postural habits they acquired. If the working position applied is not ergonomic, it will develop into health problem in the future. Purpose: this study aim was to determine correlation between ergonomic working position toward musculoskeletal disorders on preclinical dental students. Material and Methods: The study design was cross-sectional study. It was conducted in Dentistry Faculty of IIK Bhakti Wiyata Kediri, on November-December 2019. The study involved 102 respondents, taken by simple random sampling (d = 5%). Working position was measured using Test of Visual Perception. The musculoskeletal disorders were measure by Nordic Body Map questionnaire. The data was analysed using correlation contingency coefficient and Spearman test. Results: There are significantly correlation between gender (p= 0,029), physical exercise (p= 0,036), smoking habit (p= 0,048), and working position (p= 0,001) toward risk of musculoskeletal disorders. The most commonly affected body sites are right wrist (56,86%), right arm (55,88%), upper neck (46,10%), back (45,10%), right lower arm (44,12%), and right shoulder (41,18%). Conclusion: There are significant correlation between working position (p= 0,001) toward risk of musculoskeletal disorders.