Evaluation of Stressful Factors among Dental Clinical Students of Mashhad (Iran) Dentistry School: 2016-2017

Dental students who are at clinical or educational stage, are under environmental stress. The cumulative effect of clinical and educational stressors may also have negatively impact performance of clinical education in the long term and lead to mental and physical disorders. Our aim was to recognize and compare the stressful factors of dental environment among the students of clinical semester at the Mashhad Dentistry School in 2016 – 2017.
This study was a descriptive-analytical and cross-sectional study. Questionnaires were filled with 139 students that enrolled accessible /non-randomized on the study. Validity and reliability were confirmed. Results were obtained by descriptive analysis and the Kolmogorov-Smirnov, Chi-square, T-Test, ANOVA.
The overall mean score of stress among the studied students was 2.37±0.46. The highest mean score of stress in dental environment was observed in the third year students (2.57 ± 0.38). Students of the different academic years, showed a significant difference in stress levels (P-Value = 0.005). Significant differences were not seen in the most demographic features. It was also characterized that the academic performance and clinical training were the most stressful factor among students (P-Value Findings showed the need of reducing stress among students, particularly third year who have recently entered the preclinical situations. Furthermore, it is recommended to teachers and administrators of faculty to consider the necessity of revising the programs to solve problems in regard to stress problems.