Abstract
Background. Dental students have reported a high prevalence of psychological stress and the causes are associated with the challenging dental environmental and demographic factors. This study aimed to conduct a preliminary investigation on dental students’ stress status, using a sample of first-to-third-year Bachelor of Dental Surgery students in an Australian university. Special interests included causes of dental environmental stress and access to help services.Methods. A sample of 145 students was surveyed with a modified Dental Environmental Survey and Depression Anxiety Stress Scale in 2014. The participants’ demographic information was also collected.Results. The response rate was 95.4%. Second-year (P = 0.042), third-year (P < 0.001) and employed students (P = 0.027) were more likely to report stress resulting from transition to clinical learning. Third-year students were more often stressed about communicating and approaching staff (P = 0.023) as well as different opinions between staff (P < 0.001) and reduced holidays (P < 0.001). Students that were younger than 21 years of age (P = 0.001), that were first years (P < 0.001), and that were not in a relationship (P = 0.010) more often found difficulty of course work stressful. Students who were not in a relationship more often considered learning manual dexterity a source of stress (P = 0.034). Students previously seeking professional help were more likely to be stressed (P = 0.010).Conclusion. Causes of dental environment stress varied among years of study and demographic backgrounds. Professional support to stressed students should be enhanced. Further investigation is indicated.
Highlights
Psychological stress is defined as strain or pressure that can be adaptive or debilitating.[1]
A total of 252 James Cook University (JCU) Bachelor of Dentistry (BDS) students were invited to participate based on the registration records of the dental school in the academic year 2014
Dental students who had a higher Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS) score more often sought professional help (P = 0.029, OR = 4.27, 95% CI: 1.16–15.69) (Table 3)
Summary
Psychological stress is defined as strain or pressure that can be adaptive or debilitating.[1]. Studies have reported that academic and clinical performance was among the highest stressors of DES.[6,17,18,19,20] perceived stressors varied considerably among students from different dental schools and across different year levels.[6,21,22] The reason for this variation can be attributed to the accumulative nature of academic and clinical work through the course.[3,6] Students in their first year of dental school were more likely to be stressed about academics, whereas students in higher levels were more stressed about clinical work.[21] Studies have indicated that the reason why stress rose was the increase in the amount of clinical coursework.[6] implementation of DES has been reported, inconsistencies were identified This highlights a gap in the knowledge about DES in Australian dental schools. Special interests included causes of dental environmental stress and access to help services
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