Prevalence and Psychological Stress in Oral Aphthous Ulcers among Dental Students at the University of Tripoli

Recurrent aphthous ulcer (RAU) or canker sore is a common oral disorder characterized by recurrent painful ulcers in the oral mucosa. It affects approximately 20% of the population, is usually painful, interferes with eating, speaking, and swallowing, and can significantly impact an individual's quality of life. The study investigated oral ulcer prevalence, characteristics, and associated factors with assessing stress among dental students. The study was a cross-sectional questionnaire-based study involved 102 dental students of the age group 19-27 years who were selected. The questionnaire contains 2 sections. The first part included questions on the demographic characteristics of the participants and questions related to RAU, in the second part, the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) was used to assess anxiety and depression in non-psychiatric hospital clinics and those who were given the history of RAU were diagnosed as an ulcer-experience student. Out of a total 102 dental students (19%) were male and(81%) were female with a mean age of 25.5 ± 2.3 years, The majority of respondents (81%) reported having experienced recurrent aphthous ulcers, many individuals (63%) reported that their RAU lasted less than 10 days, (40.7%) indicated that their RAU was labial mucosa, among those who identified factors, stress was the most commonly mentioned, with (60.4%), in HAD scale, found that ulcer-experienced students reported higher levels of anxiety and depression than others with no history of RAU. The study revealed a high prevalence of ulcers among respondents. There is a strong relationship between psychological stress and the development of RAU.