Dental students deal with various stressors while in dental school. While some develop adaptive coping skills, others may suffer from damaging effects of constant and increasing levels of stress. This study evaluated a peer mentoring program at a dental school in the Midwest to determine student perceptions of its beneits and to identify areas for improvement. Data were collected through a survey sent out to all dental classes online. The twenty-ive-item survey was based on student responses during two focus groups held to elicit student assessment of the peer mentoring program. Sixty-six percent of the student body participated with representation from all four classes. Students ind their peer mentoring program an effective tool in helping them deal with stress especially during transition phases of their curriculum, irst into dental school and later from preclinic to the clinics. Having a mentor means easy access to an available person who can help students relieve anxieties about dental school. Experiencing dental school enables a student to serve as a mentor, so a non-dental student is seen as not effective. Peer mentoring needs to be loosely structured and lexible and should cover all years in the dental curriculum.

The present study investigates stop signals and their effects on the pain and distress of patients undergoing a stressful medical procedure. Thirty-six chronic pain patients (17 men, 19 women) attending an out-patient operating theatre for diagnostic nerve blocks/local anaesthetic injections were allocated to one of two conditions (experimental and control). All patients received a standard information leaflet concerning the forthcoming injections. Additional information was given to those in the experimental group on four occasions (three orally, one written) before the injections which stated that they could halt the procedure at any time by saying 'stop'. Subjective measures of anxiety, pain, distress, sense of control over the procedure as well as observer ratings of patient distress and pain behaviour were obtained before, during and after the injections. After initial differences in pre-injection pain were controlled for the experimental group, patients rated themselves as less distressed during the injections and recorded lower state anxiety following treatment. In view of various methodological limitations of the present study its findings may only be accorded 'pilot study' status. These limitations are explored in the discussion along with their implications for a more robust replication study. Nevertheless the present findings provide tentative support for the hypothesis that the use of stop signals can reduce the stressful nature of diagnostic nerve blocks.