Raising ‘red flags’ in the dental profession

Around 17 percent of dental practitioners have thoughts about suicide and 32 percent have moderate to severe psychological distress. Almost 25 percent are likely to be experiencing burnout, while 12.9 percent of dental practitioners live and work with anxiety and 11.5 percent have depression.

Younger practitioners under the age of 30 are more than twice as likely to have had suicidal thoughts than older practitioners, and male dental practitioners are twice as likely as females to have considered suicide.

Associate Professor Matt Hopcraft.

These are some of the findings of research by Associate Professor Matt Hopcraft, former CEO of the Australian Dental Association and Melbourne Dental School graduate who has returned to MDS as Associate Professor in Professional Practice.

Associate Professor Hopcraft also spent 15 years in clinical practice, so he has a realistic perspective of the pressures faced by dental health practitioners and what can be done to alleviate those pressures on the next generation of practitioners.

“Nobody had done this particular piece of research in the dental profession and it showed high levels of psychological distress, burnout, depression, anxiety and suicidal ideation,” he says. The study was done in collaboration with the Black Dog Institute.

“The nature of the profession sees high levels of patient complaints. Patients also have high expectations and the work is technically demanding. In the depths of the pandemic there were also significant impacts on dentists being able to work and maintain their business, income and staff. There was also the issue of the moral injury of being geared to help people and yet not being able to do that.”

While the research was completed during the pandemic when certain parts of the country suffered harsh lockdowns, Associate Professor Hopcraft says the research did not find any significant differences in rates of psychological distress across the country with rates being relatively similar from coast to coast.

He was particularly disturbed by the high levels of psychological distress reported by younger dental practitioners in the early stages of their career and says this highlight a need to wrap support around those who are at the start of their careers in the profession.

“There is clearly a lot of stress on younger practitioners,” he says.

“The next piece of research I’d like to do would look at dental students – while we see high levels of psychological distress and mental health problems early in careers, what is happening just before that? Embedding more education and awareness of mental health problems in dental education is important, so young practitioners start their career with a better understanding of this.”

He says reducing the stigma that can surround a mental health diagnosis is also paramount.

“In health professions, stigma prevents people talking about a mental health diagnosis. We need to talk about it more and help people understand that psychological distress is more common in the profession than they realise so they can seek care,” says Associate Professor Hopcraft.

Melbourne Dental School is already responding to these research findings by embedding aspects of practitioner wellbeing in the curriculum.

“We don’t know how many people the profession has already lost because their work life became too stressful. If people burn out and leave the profession early, that has implications from a workforce health delivery perspective,” says Associate Professor Hopcraft.

“When I was a dental student 30 years ago, practitioner wellbeing wasn’t discussed so we are definitely making progress but we need to do more.”