Emotional exhaustion, burnout, and perceived stress in dental students

Abstract

Objective As in other health sciences, a career in dentistry is associated with numerous stressors in practitioners. The main objective of this research was to examine the prevalence of emotional exhaustion, burnout, and perceived stress among dental students in Mexico. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted among 73 dental students attending a private university in Northern Mexico. Three scales were administered to students to identify emotional exhaustion, burnout, and perceived stress, and parametric data analysis was performed. Results Among participants (mean age 19.7 years), the proportion with emotional exhaustion, perceived high stress, and burnout was 52.0%, 42.3%, and 17.8%, respectively. All students with perceived stress also had burnout. Conclusions We found that emotional exhaustion and perceived stress are experienced by a large proportion of dentistry students enrolled in the third semester at this private university in Northern Mexico. The proportions were independent of age and sex.

<p>The Protective Role of Resilience in Emotional Exhaustion Among Dental Students at Clinical Levels</p>

“…The proportion of the dental clinical students who reported high EE was significant, which is consistent with previous studies. 3,13 The high percentage of participants with high EE in the sample may be due to the sociocultural context of the study and the cut-off adopted for discriminating high and low EE. For the significant demographic factor-genderhigher EE levels were reported by females in our study, which is consistent with a study by Kulkarni et al, 21 but conflicts with results for males and females in other studies.…”

“…1 Students who pursue careers in dentistry may experience occupational distress due to the nature of clinical practice management and interpersonal interaction competences. 2,3 Psychological stress refers to an overload of mental, physiological and behavioural responses resulting from how individuals perceive situations or events in their environment. Based on previous studies, stress prevalence among Saudi undergraduate dental students ranges from 54% to 71% and intensifies with each progressive year that students study.…”

“…4,6,8,9 Dental students at clinical levels can experience high levels of burnout, and this is related to dental programme requirements, which expose students to a combination of the risk factors of health workers (eg, dealing with and treating patients) and those of university students (eg, academic commitments and exams). 3,8,9 Recently, the epidemiology of burnout as an occupational phenomenon has become prominent. For example, the World Health Organization added burnout to the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) 10 and included more details in the ICD 11 (2019), defining burnout as "a syndrome conceptualised as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed."…”

“…17 Among dental students, EE is one of the most significant responses to stressful environmental stimuli, thus negatively impacting students' learning and clinical performance. 3,18 The estimates of EE vary according to student seniority, sociocultural context and the MBI version used and has been reported to be 10-50%. 3,[10][11][12][13][14]19 Although research on factors associated with EE among dental students at the clinical level is scarce, the available and relevant literature has reported age, 14 gender, 16 university type 20 and environmental stress 14,21,22 associated with EE.…”

Self‐reported psychological problems amongst undergraduate dental students: A pilot study in seven European countries

“…A systematic review concluded that psychological problems have the strongest association with suicide . Moreover, numerous studies have reported a high prevalence of psychological problems amongst dental students all over the world . A high level of stress at baseline and incremental increases throughout their education was found amongst dental students in several dental schools in Northern and Western Europe .…”