Physical and health work conditions for brazilian dental surgeons and their satisfaction with public job

Objectives: Evaluate the view of dentists that works in public health system about physical and health work conditions and their public job satisfaction. Methods: In this investigation and cross-sectional study, it was used an instrument like a script for interview, performed by four trained researchers with 40 dentists from 10 cities of São Paulo State, Brazil. The follow variables were studied: satisfaction with the work environment; maintenance, time of use and satisfaction with the equipment; biosecurity aspects. Results: About wok environment, 49% of total considered it like uncomfortable, 45% demonstrated dissatisfaction with space cooling, 45% with noises, 20% with cleaning and 37,5% with size of dental office. Among all participants, 92,6% couldn't give attendance for patient due broken equipments, and 90% of total, cited that the equipments received maintenance to fix it. About the use status of equipments, 40% of dentists informed that dental unit were in bad or terrible conditions, and 37,5% referred to dental chair. A large part (32,5%) informed that the equipments and dental chair had more than 24 years of use. In 55% of work locals the sterilization of instruments was performed using oven, 35% of professionals worked without dental auxiliaries and 22,5% demonstrated dissatisfaction with biosecurity. However, 92.5% were satisfied with public job. Conclusions: A large part of dentists showed dissatisfaction with physical conditions, although the public job satisfaction had been cited. The absence of dental auxiliaries, ideal ways of sterilization and preventive maintenance of equipments can damage the quality of health service.