Link between individual resilience and aggressiveness in dental students and the mediating effect of spirituality: A path analysis

Abstract

BACKGROUND: The role of spirituality in people’s lives, particularly the lives of health professionals, as well as its impact on mental health issues like anger and aggressiveness and resilience, are particularly significant. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the link between the propensity for violence and personal resilience in dental students by taking into account the function of spirituality as a mediator. MATERIALS AND METHODS: In this cross-sectional questionnaire survey, 211 volunteer dentistry students participated from a government institute in Jammu and Kashmir, India using a stratified sample procedure. The Spiritual Orientation Scale, Buss and Perry Aggression Questionnaire, and Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale were used to gather the data. SPSS version 20.0 was used for conducting a bivariate analysis to ascertain the directionality connection between the research variables. In addition; structural equation modelling analysis was conducted by Smart PLS. RESULTS: According to the findings, resilience and spirituality have a substantial and positive link (r = 0.468 r = 0.023). Aggressiveness and resilience revealed a statistically significant inverse link (r = 0.325, P = 0.04), but aggression and spirituality had no significant correlation. Spirituality played a substantial mediation influence in the indirect pathway of violence on resilience (P = 0.001). CONCLUSION: According to the study’s findings, spirituality can help pupils become more resilient as individuals and can act as a helpful intermediary between aggressiveness and resilience.