A typology of dental students according to their experience of stress: a qualitative study

Dental students often report high levels of stress. Even though many studies have been conducted on this issue, we still lack a global understanding of how dental students experience and deal with stress, making it difficult for dental educators to improve this situation. Consequently, our study aimed to understand in a comprehensive manner how dental students experience stress. We conducted a qualitative research study based on in-depth one-on-one interviews with twelve recent graduates from a Canadian dental school. The interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim. We then analyzed the transcripts in a process that included coding, displaying, and interpreting data. We identified three types of students: highly stressed, moderately stressed, and relaxed students. Relaxed students reported very low levels of stress, which they dealt with by using good coping skills. Moderately stressed students were more affected, but they considered stress as acceptable and even helpful as it pushed them to perform better and succeed. Finally, highly stressed students showed alarming levels of stress and described it as "crippling" and "unmanageable." They felt helpless and explained that stress had negative repercussions for their physical and mental health as well as their social life. They related stress to fear of failing, heavy workload, and difficulties in dealing with transitions in the curriculum and sometimes to difficult relationships with the academic staff. They dealt with stress by using poor coping skills. It is crucial to help highly stressed students by both reducing their sources of stress and helping them develop appropriate coping strategies.