Sources of Stress and Psychological Disturbance Among Dental Students in the West Indies

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate sources of stress and psychological disturbance in dental students across the five years of undergraduate study at a dental school in Trinidad. Eighty-three percent of students completed a modified version of the Dental Environment Stress questionnaire (DES) and the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI). On a scale ranging from 0 (not stressful) to 5 (highly stressful), overall mean DES scores for each of the five years of study were 1.58, 1.83, 2.65, 2.39, and 2.61 respectively, suggesting that levels of stress increase over the five years with a noticeable spike at the transition between the preclinical and clinical phases. Significant differences were found between specific stressors across the five years of study. Seven specific stressors and the stressor domains of Academic work and Clinical factors were more stressful for female students (t-test p< 0.05). The Global Severity Index of the BSI indicated that 54.8 percent of males and 44.2 percent of females were in the clinical range indicating significant psychological disturbance. Psychological disturbance was significantly associated with stress levels for male students (Spearmans rank correlation r = 0.56; p< 0.001), but not generally for female students. Further development is needed of dental educational programs that enhance students' psychosocial well-being.Dr. Naidu is Lecturer in Community Dentistry,

Perceived stress and well-being among dental hygiene and dental therapy students

“…This finding is inconsistent with that from other studies of DS which have looked at DES individual item stressors across each year of study and found that Year 3 DS reported the same transition as being highly stressful. 5,32 Unlike some dental undergraduate programmes, that focus on theory and laboratorybased skills education in the first two years, the UPDA curriculum introduces clinical experience at a very early stage in Year 1 (after 3 months), which may have been a contributing factor which lessened the perceived stress of transition to practice for the studied DHDTS.…”

“…Committee, and an anonymous, self-reported online questionnaire ( Figure 1 The DES 31 was chosen as it is the most widely used measurement in the dental setting, within the existing literature. A modified version was used, 32 consisting of thirty-nine items describing stressors specifically relating to dental undergraduate training. The response to each item was rated on a five-point scale: 0 = not pertinent, 1 = not stressful, 2 = slightly stressful, 3 = moderately stressful and 4 = very stressful.…”

Dental environment and war-related stress among dental students, Yemen

“…Family responsibilities and duties of married dental students, as well as having children, increase psychological pressure and affecting the overall amount of stress. As revealed by other studies, married students are expected to reside in their own homes and live away from parents' home (34)(35)(36).…”

Evaluation of the Sources of Stress in Dominican Dental Students: a cross-sectional study

“…If a student fails his or her exams, he or she will not pass their courses, will have to face their parents and professors after a failing grade, and may have subsequent personal problems (daily life factor), as described by Yap et al 40 Furthermore, the atmosphere in the clinic item is essential to distinguishing the first period from the second, and reflects the transition from basic sciences to clinical sciences. 47 The fact that the responsibilities associated with patient management scored higher in our sample than the opinions that patients may have regarding the treatments received suggests that what actually causes stress among dental students is carrying out treatments, not The primary obstacle we encountered during this study was the potential subjective nature of the responses given. In order to validate the tools applied here, we suggest carrying out a multicentric study in all of the dental schools in the Dominican Republic.…”

“…Yet we can affirm that the academic factor is the most relevant stressor, as reflected in other studies. 22,35,40,41,47,48 That being said, this factor is not exclusive, as it interacts with others. If a student fails his or her exams, he or she will not pass their courses, will have to face their parents and professors after a failing grade, and may have subsequent personal problems (daily life factor), as described by Yap et al 40 Furthermore, the atmosphere in the clinic item is essential to distinguishing the first period from the second, and reflects the transition from basic sciences to clinical sciences.…”