Mindful Smiles Hub Launch
The dental profession in Australia is experiencing a mental health crisis, with high levels of psychological distress, burnout and mental illness.
A free online resource focusing on the mental health and wellbeing of Australian dental practitioners launches today as new research published this week again highlights the significant mental health burden they are experiencing.
Australian dental practitioners appear to be at high risk of burnout, which may impact on their health and wellbeing and their ability to deliver patient care, with one in four practitioners experiencing symptoms consistent with burnout, a new survey of close to 1500 Australian practitioners has found. Published in the Journal of Public Health Dentistry, the study surveyed dentists, dental specialists, oral health therapists, dental therapists, dental hygienists and dental prosthetists between October and December 2021.
Dentistry is a stressful profession. Stressors include time and scheduling pressures, striving for perfection, fear of litigation, anxious patients, demanding and unrealistic patient expectations (particularly meeting aesthetic needs), business pressures, staffing problems, regulatory demands and negative perceptions of the dental profession. It can also be an isolating profession despite there often being a large number of staff in the workplace.
There is a need for a solutions-oriented call to action across the dental profession to draw attention to burnout and to look at interventions that focus on improving mental health and wellbeing. That is why we developed the Mindful Smiles Hub to be the leading voice for mental health and wellbeing for members of the dental team in Australia.
Although there is an abundance of resources and support available to members of the dental team, it lacks coordination and a central point of focus, and much of it is not specifically targeted to dental practitioners and their teams. The work of the Mindful Smiles Hub is to collate this information, contextualise it for the dental team, make it readily available, raise awareness of mental health and wellbeing and work to reduce the stigma associated with mental health issues.