Are dental students at risk of developing occupational musculoskeletal disorders?

One hundred and twenty six dental students (Table 1), enrolled in 1st, 4th and 5th class years at the Faculty of Dental Medicine of University of Porto, volunteered to fulfill the questionnaire.

1 INTRODUCTION

The clinical practice of dental medicine has been indicated as involving an increased risk of musculoskeletal disorders for its practitioners (Akesson et al., 1999, de Carvalho et al., 2009, Winkel & Westgaard, 2008), namely due to cumulative trauma (Andrews & Vigoren, 2002, Newell & Kumar, 2005, Rice et al., 1996).