Medical students are the category of academic population with the highest levels of stress. This study aimed to assess the prevalence of academic stress among medical students in Saudi Arabia and to identify its associated factors. This cross-sectional study was conducted at the College of Medicine at King Khalid University, Abha. The Medical Student Stressor Questionnaire (MSSQ) was used to evaluate the stress caused by different factors. A total of 422 medical students participated in this study. Among the participants, 115 (27.3%) were male and 307 (72.7%) were female. The highest percentage of students were perceiving moderate to severe stress due to academic-related stressors (97.1%), followed by teaching- and learning-related stressors (93.9%) and group activities-related stressors (88.3%). The lowest domain in which students perceived moderate to severe stress was drive and desire-related stressors (65.8%). The mean percentage of students who perceived moderate-to-severe stress in all domains of stressors was 85.5%. We can conclude that medical students have a high degree of stress, and we emphasize the importance of implementing stress management programs to teach students how to handle stress in order to avoid negative effects on their health and academic performance.

Background and objective: Oral health is one of the essential elements of the overall health status of the people. Dental hygiene and dental diseases concern to have a major public health problem. The aim of this study was to know the proportion self-perception of dental problems and their relation with the socio-demographic characteristics among female students at intermediate governmental schools in Abha. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among girls students of two intermediate government schools of Abha city during October 2016 to April 2017 academic year by using self-administered questionnaire and informed verbal consent was obtained, using simple random sampling techniques for choosing 400 students. Results: Mean age of the students was 12.30±1.82, 163(41%) of students were 12-13 years of age and 200(50%) from 1st year of intermediate scholastic year. Almost all students belong to nuclear family system and 64%lived in rented houses. Working status of father and mothers was 94% and 53% respectively, 88% family’s monthly income >10000 SAR/per month, 203 (51%) fathers and 171 (43%) mothers had secondary school or higher education. Illiteracy was 13% among fathers and 19% among mothers. The proportion of self-perceived dental problems was 43% among students, malocclusion of teeth was most frequent while bad smell was the least frequent complaints among all dental problems. Only 38% of the students were considering dental problem as a serious problem. Dental problems were found to have significantly (P value <0.001) associated with age, scholastic year, father’s education and occupation, and income. Conclusion: It is concluded that although prevalence of dental problems were higher but frequency of self-perceived problems were much lower which highlighted that there is need to increase the awareness of dental problems among population to have a better general health status.