Abstract
Background: Health-related quality of life (HRQoL) is an essential concept for all health professionals. It is used to assess material, physical, social, emotional, and productive well-being. Health professionals investigate the HRQoL for their patients but rarely for themselves. Aim: To investigate the HRQoL among dentists in Middle-East countries. Materials and Methods: A multicenter and multi-regional stratified sample of 339 dentists (220 females and 119 males) with a mean age of 37 +/- 9 years and 13 +/- 8 years of experiences in dental practices in Middle-East countries participated in the study. HRQoL was assessed using the short form-8 (SF-8) health survey. The study group was examined based on HRQOL differences in age, gender, income, and overall QoL. The IBM (R) SPSS Statistics version 21 (IBM Corp., Armonk, USA) statistical software package was used for data analysis. The Spearman correlation coefficient and independent t-tests were used and significance was set at P <= 0.05. Results: The study observed that HRQoL among Middle East dental practitioners were within the published accepted general population range, in both physical component summary and mental component summary summaries of SF-8. The study also observed that gender differences had no role in terms of HRQoL among dental practitioners (P = 0.64). Conclusions: The study concluded that dentists have a positive HRQoL and no gender differences in HRQoL along with their years of dental practice. It is important that rehabilitation specialists have enough HRQoL information on different health-care professionals and geographical distribution to enable them to adopt an appropriate strategy and healthcare polices for a better outcome.