Introduction: The stress that has helped people survive through thousands of years has nowadays become treacherous and merciless. It’s present everywhere, including work. Our job is a source of income and gives us a feeling of self-worth, that is why it is so important to feel good in the workplace. Stress is a perfectly normal response of a person when feeling threatened by the discrepancy between the demands of the workplace and one’s capabilities or when there is an imbalance between the effort that has been put in and the reward for the same task. Stress does not affect only the person under stress, but the entire organization. The professions of a dental laboratory prosthetist and of a dental technician are among more stressful professions, due to the constant exposure to various dangers, which eventually leads to a state of stress. That is why the dental laboratories should be aware of the risk factors for stress and take all the necessary measures to prevent and overcome them. Purpose: The main purpose of the diploma thesis is to research the presence of stress in the workplace of dental laboratory prosthetists and of dental technicians, to see to what extent it manifests itself and how often they encounter it. Other aims are to examine the causes of stress, to present which stressors have the most negative influence on the employees in the dental laboratory and to identify the differences in the levels of stress between employees in the private and public sectors. Methods: In the theoretical part, we have used a descriptive method of work, based on the study of pre-existing literature and professional articles from various web portals, such as COBISS, Google Scholar, DiKul, as well as from electronic databases MEDLINE and Dlib. In the research part, we prepared a survey questionnaire which was sent by e-mail to more than a hundred randomly selected dental (both public and private) laboratories throughout Slovenia. We received 49 fully completed surveys. Results: According to the survey, the level of stress exposure in dental laboratories in Slovenia is relatively high. Employees in private laboratories are significantly more susceptible to stress. The survey also showed that work overload is by far the strongest source of stress, followed by time constraints and a too fast work pace, low salary (considering the amount of work done), working overtime, poor communication between the dental laboratory and the dentist’s office and the balancing of work and private life. Other general factors have relatively little effect on the development of stress in the workplace. The analysis of the data showed that the inhalation of hazardous substances and the dust in the air is also one of the major ergonomic stressors in the dental laboratory. The process of making dental prostheses and utensils can also be stressful. We have found that aesthetic veneers are the most demanding product in the field of fixed dental prosthetics. In the field of removable dental prosthetics, the manufacturing of a prosthesis with a metal base causes the most headaches. All-on-4 prosthesis is one of the most demanding products in the field of implantology. The manufacturing of functional dental braces is the most exacting task which at the same time represents the biggest source of stress in the field of orthodontics. Discussion and conclusion: Even though stress in the workplace is inevitable (because it can be caused by virtually everything that surrounds us), we need to pay much more attention to it – only in this way will we be able to reduce its drastic consequences on the individual and cause less harm to the entire organization.
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