Factors Affecting Stress and Stress Management Among Dentists Graduated from Chiang Mai University

Abstract

Objectives: This study aims to explore the levels of overall and occupational stress, correlation between overall and occupational stress, factors affecting overall and occupational stress, and stress management strategies among dentists who graduated from Chiang Mai University. Methods: 2,650 dentists who graduated from Chiang Mai University between 1983 and 2020 and are now working in Thailand were the subject of this study. Between May and September 2021, 2,466 dentists were provided online surveys that included the Suanprung Stress Test-20, Work Stress Inventory for Dentists, and Stress-coping strategy checklist. 588 respondents filled out the surveys (response rate was 23.8%). With the level of significance set at 0.05, descriptive and analytical statistics were used to examine the data using SPSS. Results: 78% of respondents had moderate to high level of overall stress, 84.9% had low to normal level of occupational stress. There was a positive correlation between overall and occupational stress (rs=0.686, p<0.001). ‘age’, ‘having underlying disease’, and ‘financial status’ were the factors which significantly resulted in different overall stress scores (p<0.05). ‘hobbies’ had the highest rating for stress coping (87.6%), followed by ‘resting’ (79.7%) and ‘eating’ (68.4%). Conclusions: The majority of dentists had normal levels of occupational stress, moderate to high levels of overall stress, and occupational stress significantly correlated with overall stress. There were a few factors that affect overall stress after adjusting for influences of the confounding variables. And there were a variety of stress coping strategies that dentists used for stress management. The findings of this study could be useful for strategic planning to prevent and resolve dentists' stress issues in the future.