Clinical anxiety among a sample of dental students in South Sinai

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Anxiety may be induced in the dental clinics, which is an essential learning environment for undergraduate dental students. This could have a negative impact on clinical performance. This study aimed to estimate the incidence of clinical anxiety among a sample of Dental students and to determine possible precipitating factors for clinical anxiety among them. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was carried out among 3rd and 4th year dental students at King Salman International University using the modified 34 items of Moss and McManus clinical anxiety questionnaire. RESULTS: 263 students participated. Dental students reported higher incidence of clinical anxiety (60.8%), particularly with different dental treatment plan procedures related clinical situations fulfilling 31.2 out of mean score of anxiety all (74.0 ). Females had higher anxiety score in all domains than males, the same trend noticed in students who reported dental phobia and previous bad dental experiences (P < 0.001, P 0.016, P 0.003 respectively). Participants rated the clinical anxiety precipitating situations in a descending order as follows: extracting wrong tooth (39.5%), giving wrong treatment (37.6%), tearing of the cheek/lips due to catching on a dental burr (35.7%), fracturing a tooth (34.4%), wrong diagnosis (28.1%), inadvertently hurting the patient (22.1%), inability to meet requirements before exams (19.1%), dealing with a fainting patient during dental treatment (18.7%). Two clinical anxiety precipitating situations had almost the same score including restoration failure/recurrent caries and endodontic retreatment procedures 14.8% and 14.4% respectively. Also, extracting tooth and arresting postoperative bleeding had the same score of 13.7%, while the rest of other clinical situations ranged from 11.8 to 1.1%. CONCLUSIONS: dental students had a comparatively high level of anxiety during clinical classes especially females and those with dental phobia and previous bad dental experiences. Dental students may benefit from stress management classes, mentorship programs, and improved clinical supervision in order to reduce clinical anxiety and build resilience.