The perception of stress levels in Dental Students of Dijlah University-Iraq

Aim: To investigate the sources of stress that dental students self-report and to ascertain the impact of study level on the stresses that are felt. Materials and methods: This survey is carried out among undergraduate dental students in the third, fourth and fifth years’ levels at the Faculty of Dentistry in Dijlah University during the academic year 2023–2024. Dentistry students participated in a modified self-reported questionnaire. The Dental Environment Stress questionnaire, which was first created by Garbee et al, is adapted to measure dental environment stress The 42 closed-ended questions were separated into seven domains. The statistical package for social sciences was used to analyze the data. For every stressor, the mean values and standard deviations were used to examine descriptive statistics. Results: The questionnaire was completed by 300 dental students, the domain with the highest stressors was "Performance pressure “while the domain with the lowest stressors was "Self-efficacy belief "."Examinations and quizzes" was the most stressful question among the stressors, while " Inadequate number of instructors " was the least stressful. Frequencies, means, and comparisons between study participants with study levels were examined in the obtained data. We performed nonparametric tests with a 95% confidence range and an error of 0.05. Conclusion: Dental students undergo a lot of pressures in their academic and professional lives. psychology courses have to be introduced to and taught at dentistry institutions or select student counselors and advisors to each student throughout their academic career to get their opinions on instructors and courses.