Professional Satisfaction of Dentists Providing Basic Care in Brazil

Professional Satisfaction of Dentists Providing Basic Care in São Bernardo do Campo, Brazil

Valquíria de Souza Djehizian

Objective: To identify the motivational factors and level of professional satisfaction of dentists providing “primary care” at Basic Health Units in São Bernardo do Campo, Brazil. Methods: Data analysis was performed according to Bardin's Content Analysis, which deals with the linguistic materiality through the empirical conditions of the text, establishing categories for its interpretation. This concept provides insights to our understanding of the work motivation of dentists who are members of an oral health care team, which brings health promotion and curative programs to the community, showing possible personal satisfaction based on motivational needs as proposed by Alderfer (1969). The data collection tool used was based on the three need levels considered by this theory: Existence, Relatedness and Growth. A sample of 8 dentists was selected from the municipal health services of São Bernardo do Campo. The research was conducted using semi-structured interviews, the data collection consisted in the identification of the level of satisfaction of motivational needs, evaluating 20 items from the 3 constructs, which were developed based on the aforementioned theory. Results: In the first need level, Existence, the topics covered were salary issues, job stability and job security. In the Relatedness level, the items respect, praise, education, quality of life, teamwork and recognition were assessed. In the third level, Growth, the items included were: achievement, human resources, prejudice, research motivation and professional qualification. Conclusion: The discourses analyzed in this research showed that the dentists feel valued when actively participating in health promotion programs, because they interact with other professionals who are members of the team, while curative practices seems to demand a quality of service that did not give them full professional satisfaction.