Comparison of Stress Levels and Factors Inducing It Between Polish Medical and Dental Students in the Pre-Clinical Years of Their Training

Introduction: Stress has become an integral part of modern life. In the short-term, stress can be beneficial, but however, experiencing it long-term is increasingly common and can lead to multiple disorders, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes and memory disabilities. Medical and dental undergraduates experience both stress related to their medical training and such associated with existence in general.Aims: The primary aim of this study was to determine stress level among medical and dental students in the pre-clinical years of their training and find out which factors induce stress the most. The second objective was to discover which pre-clinical students are most susceptible to stress: medical or dental.Materials and methods: A total of 599 pre-clinical students from both dental and medical undergraduate studies at Jagiellonian University Medical College were enrolled in the study, of which 491 were medical and 108 were dental students. To assess stress levels and the factors that induce it, we used 2 validated surveys: the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10) and the Perceived Medical School Stress (PMSS) instrument.Results: We observed that dental pre-clinical students obtained significantly higher scores on the PSS 10 (23.49 6.18) and PMSS (37.34 8.08) than their medical colleagues: PSS-10 (21.58 6.89) and PMSS (35.33 8.15). However, both medical and dental students demonstrated high stress levels.Conclusions: Both pre-clinical Polish medical and dental students experience high levels of stress. The later achieved significantly higher scores regarding level of stress than their medical peers. Both medical and dental students most strongly agree with statements indicating that training takes over their life and leaves too little time for other activities. These findings allow to suggest that support services should be made widely-available to all preclinical medical and dental students. Such services should be targeted to the specific needs of both groups. It also seems necessary to conduct similar research in other groups of medical students whose programme also comprises clinical classes (with patients) - including students of physical therapy, nursing, occupational therapy as well as emergency services. Students of these faculties often spend more time directly beside the patient's bed, dealing with his/her care or rehabilitation.