The Perception of Stress among Clinical Dental Students

Abstract

ABSTRACT Objective To determine the prevalence of stress among clinical students from Faculty of Dentistry, King Abdul Aziz University, Jeddah. Materials and methods A cross-sectional descriptive study was carried out in May 2012 on fourth, fifth and sixth year clinical dental students from Faculty of Dentistry, King Abdul Aziz University, Jeddah, using a modified form of dental environment stress (DES) questionnaire. A total of 353 questionnaires were distributed and incomplete questionnaires were excluded from the study. SPSS version 15 was used to do statistical analysis. Results A total of 353 students were asked to complete the questionnaire and 232 (65.7%) responded; of these 120 (51.7%) were males and remaining 112 (48.3%) were females. More or less all the students were having stress. In male students severe stress was due to difficulty in getting suitable patient (51%) and the patient who were arriving late or not coming on appointment, p = 0.16, whereas in female they were having severe stress due to fear of failure (59%), p = 0.02, examination and grading (57%) and completing examination requirement (52%). In male, amount of academic overload was also main cause of severe stress (p = 0.03). Sixth-year students were having more stress due to amount of overload (59.1%), lack of time to do assigned work (53.4%), difficulty to get suitable patient (71.6%) and patient arriving late or not coming on appointment (64.8%). Fifth-year students were more stressed due to completing examination requirement (65.7%). Fourth-year students were having more stress due to fear of failure (58.4%) and examination and grading (58.4%). Conclusion The finding of this study show some considerable degree or severe stress among the students. Longitudinal studies that include preclinical dental students should be carried out to know how the pattern of stress varies during preclinical and clinical training period. How to cite this article Al-Samadani KH, Al-Dharrab A. The Perception of Stress among Clinical Dental Students. World J Dent 2013;4(1):24-28.