Stress among preclinical students in a private dental school in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

Introduction: Dental schools are known to be highly demanding with a stressful learning environment. The stress when recognized in the preclinical years will help us to identify the coping strategies for the students so that they will be prepared for increased work load in the coming up years in the clinics. Aim: To identify and manage certain causes of stress in preclinical dental students at a private dental institute in Jeddah. Methodology: This study is a questionnaire survey. It is a descriptive cross sectional study conducted among the second and third year male and female Bachelor of Dental Surgery (BDS) preclinical students. Results: The reasons that cause stress in the preclinical students' perspective are that they feel that the amount of requirement is more so they are unable to get time for relaxation. They have a fully loaded day so they are stressed. Few students are having financial problems and others are facing personal problems where they had to postpone getting engaged, married and few married students had to postpone having children. The preclinical students are finding difficulty in understanding the subject. They are having stress from the teaching staff as they are unapproachable and there is no consistent feedback regarding their work being given by them. From the supervisors in their preclinical sessions they are having stress due to lack of availability of supervisors in the laboratory and the differences in opinion between them. The students are stressed due to the shortage of allocated laboratory time. According to the gender the males have exhibited more stress than females and the reasons attributed to this are difficulty in understanding lectures, fear of not having possibility to pursue a post graduate program and fear of being unable to catch up if getting behind with work. Conclusion: This study was aimed to assess the perceived sources of preclinical students of a private dental school in Jeddah. The preclinical students showed an increase in stress levels.