Dental students' perceptions of stress and social support

Objectives: To compare the stress levels in preclinical and clinical dental students among three main dental schools in Malaysia and to assess the effect of social support on the stress levels in preclinical and clinical dental students. Method: This is a cross sectional survey of all undergraduate students enrolled at the Faculty of Dentistry University of Malaya (UM), National University of Malaysia (UKM) and University Science Malaysia (USM), conducted in July 2005. The instruments used were the16 item Dental Environment Scale (DES) for pre-clinical and 37 item DES for the clinical students and four items for the social support questions. The total stress score were adjusted to standardise the score. Results: A total of 375 preclinical and a total of 417 clinical undergraduate dental students responded to the questionnaires. The total adjusted stress score for both preclinical and clinical were similar for all three dental schools. In all the three dental schools, the most stressful item reported among the preclinical students was; fear of failing (UM =78.8%, UKM= 55.7%, USM = 61.7%) and completing the course was the most stressful reported among the clinical students (UM= 81.1%, UKM= 86.9%, USM = 85.3%). Students in the preclinical years who received more support from teachers and students had lower adjusted stress score. On the other hand there was no positive influence of social support on the stress levels among the clinical students. Conclusion: The level of stress in all three dental schools are similar regardless their level of study. The social support seems to positively influence the stress levels for preclinical students and not for the clinical students.