Abstract

STRESS LEVEL AMONG DENTAL STUDENTS, IT’S EFFECT AND COPING STRATEGIES: A CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDY

*Dr. Swati Sharma, Dr. Kuldeep Dhanker and Dr Alankrita Chaudhary

Abstract

Introduction: Stress is part of the daily activities nowadays. Dental education has been proved to have a stressful nature and stressors are multifactorial. The highly competitive dental education exerts a negative effect on the psychological wellbeing, physical health and academic performance of the individual. Aim: To determine the prevalence of various stressors, their effect on the dental students and stress coping strategies adopted by them. Methodology: Observational study conducted amongst the BDS students of School of Dental Sciences in the year 2015. Total number of students participated in the study were 209. Pre tested structured questionnaire was used to find out the various stressors and their coping strategies. Results were obtained by subjecting the data to statistical analysis using SPSS version 20.0. Results: Total participants in the study were 209 including 63 males and 146 females. Different levels of stress were obtained in different years. Difficulty in getting patients was a major stressor at the senior level. Conclusion: Most of the students pursuing BDS are facing some sort of stress during the course. Positive part of the study was that only handful students were practicing negative stress coping strategies like alcohol or smoking.

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