Evaluación de estrés en estudiantes de VI a X semestre de la facultad de odontología en la universidad Santo Tomás

Abstract

Background: Stress affects the mental, cognitive, motor and physiological health of people. It is reported that university students are vulnerable to stress especially for the academic demands of their education. This is true for those estudents in the health care fields who face additional challenges such as pre-clinical, clinical and theorical activities.It has been found that dental students are susceptible to handle high levels of stress due to specific requirements in its performance which include to find their patients, be responsible for their treatment and have enough skills to approve the classes they take . Objective: to assess the stress level on students VI to X semester at the Dental School in the Universidad Santo Tomás by the Dental Environment Stress questionnaire (DES) 30SP version. Methodology: a cross-sectional study was performed. The sample consisted of 173 students who were invited to participate. The questionnaire was filled out individually. The dependent variable was the score of stress evaluated through the four dimensions that the questionnaire includes (academic workload, clinical, administrative and personal factors). The independent variables were gender, age, course period, socioeconomic status, marital status, dentistry as first choice of study, among others. Frequencies and proportions for qualitative variables and measures of central tendency and dispersion for quantitative were obtained. The Chi2 test, Fisher exact test was applied as appropriate. In addition, crude and adjusted Prevalence Ratios (PR) were calculated by a negative binomial regression model. For all tests, a value of p ≤ 0.05 was statistically significant. All students agreed to participate by signing the informed consent.