Clinical anxiety among final year dental students: The trainers and students perspectives

Abstract

Background: The dental clinical setting, which is a significant learning environment for undergraduate dental students, may induce anxiety, which may adversely affect the clinical performance. The purpose of this cross-sectional study was to determine the factors provoking clinical anxiety in dental students from the trainers and students perspectives. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted among 6 th (final) year dental students of University of Benin and their clinical trainers between January and March 2012 using the 38-item modified Moss and McManus clinical anxiety questionnaire. Results: Of the 67 participants, 32 (47.8%) were 6 th year dental students while 35 (52.2%) were clinical trainers. According to the students, the top clinical anxiety provoking situations were inability to meet requirements before exams, inability to pass the final exams, dealing with psychiatric patients, coping with uncooperative children, getting infected by patients, fracturing a tooth during extraction, extracting the wrong tooth, discovering calculus by the supervisor after scaling, accidental pulp exposure, inadvertently hurting patients and using the high speed hand piece. There existed concordance on the top two clinical anxiety provoking situations reported by the students and their clinical trainers. However, measuring blood pressure, taking pulse, presenting in the clinic, handling a syncopal attack, and accidental pulp exposure were statistically significant contrasting clinical anxiety provoking situations from dental students and trainers perspectives. Conclusion: Data from this study revealed that clinical trainers share largely the same perspectives with the dental students on the clinical anxiety provoking situations with slight variations. Fostering a supportive learning environment conducive to dental student learning by strengthen efforts to minimize clinical anxiety is a necessity.