Dental hygiene students’ stress responses and associated factors during clinical training

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to clarify dental hygiene students’ psychological and physical responses to stress and associated factors during clinical training, and to examine ways in which teachers can provide support for students.

A questionnaire was conducted to survey 46 third-year students at a dental hygiene school after the completion of their initial clinical training at actual clinics. The questionnaire examined attributes, lifestyles, environments, subjective health, stressors during clinical training, and scores from the partially revised Brief Job Stress Questionnaire.

The results of the 44 students (all female, av. 20.8 ±0.6 years old), who answered all questions were analyzed. Among the stressors during clinical training, “my insufficient knowledge” and “my insufficient skills” were the most common (36; 81.8%), followed by “creating training records” (35; 79.5%). “Anxiety” (24; 54.5%) was most frequently observed in students with high or relatively high stress response levels. Furthermore, health status during clinical training was positively correlated with “feeling active”, “feeling frustrated”, “feeling fatigue”, “feeling anxious”, “feeling depressed”, and “unidentified complaints” (P<0.01). In addition, sleep duration was negatively correlated with ”feeling fatigue” during clinical training (P<0.01). Also, those not living with family members had higher scores for “feeling depressed” and lower scores for “feeling active”.

The results suggest that students feel stressed about their abilities/skills rather than their interpersonal relationships, and negative stress such as “feeling anxious” is correlated with physical conditions during clinical training. Thus, it may be necessary for teachers to provide sufficient support for students so that they do not worry about their knowledge and skills, and to take their lifestyles and environments into consideration.