• Journal of dental hygiene science
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• v.12 no.5
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• pp.525-534
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• 2012

Study the effect of stress factors and increases in stress at work on the changes in eating behavior and habits and the influence of these changes on the health of dental hygienists. Use the responses of 273 dental hygienists who work in or around the Seoul area after surveying them by post or face to face. The biggest reason for skipping breakfast was having no time (60.4%) and the most desired change in eating habits was over eating (33.0%) while 51.6% responded that they over ate or binge ate due to stress. The largest stress factor was work load 39.6% and subjects responded that after stress the amount of food consumed increased very much for 12.1%, very for 49.8%, indicating increased food consumption than usual. The group with the most job stress had a high level of self stress awareness (p<0.001), nervousness (p<0.01), back pains (p<0.001), optical fatigue (p<0.01), headache (p<0.01) and indigestion (p<0.01). The higher the job stress, the poorer the eating behavior was (p<0.01) and job stress was high for dental hygienists working in dental clinics with less than three dental hygienists (p<0.05). Low eating behavior scores could be seen in groups that took 4 night shifts per week (p<0.05). Job stress scores for high for groups with no break time during work (p<0.001) and these groups showed low eating behavior scores (p<0.01). Furthermore, if high levels of self stress awareness was present, job stress was very high (p<0.001) and eating behavior scores were the lowest (p<0.05). Job stress of dental hygienists impede the eating behavior and habits therefore has a negative influence on their health. There is a need for more efforts to solve this problem and thus maintain the health of dental hygienists.