Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
International Journal of Health Management and Tourism, cilt.10, sa.2, ss.216-231, 2025 (Hakemli Dergi)
Aim: Dental education includes both theoretical knowledge and clinical practice so that students acquire the skills to prevent, diagnose and treat oral health problems. Dental students feel stress owing to an inability to keep up with the workload and to complete clinical requirements. Therefore, this study aimed to examine the psychological resilience levels in dental students as future healthcare workers.
Methods: This cross-sectional study included 678 dental students (F/M:428/250) from a foundation university (FU) and 550 students (F/M:358/192) from a public university (PU). Data were collected by a questionnaire regarding personal information and the “Brief Resilience Scale” (BRS) with a 6-item (1-6 points). The BRS score was categorized into two groups as the low resilience (<3 points) vs. the normal resilience/high resilience (≥3 points).
Results: Both decrease in BRS score (3.12±0.78 in FU vs. 2.97±0.82 in PU) and elevated ratios of low BRS (33,9% vs.46,5%, respectively) were observed in the PU compared to those of FU (p<0.001 for both). In the study group, female students (2.98±0.77 in FU, 2.82±0.77 in PU) had low BRS score compared to those of male students (3.35±0.77 in FU, 3.27±0.84 in PU) in both universities (p=0.001 for both). The BRS score was lower in the clinical phase of dental education than the preclinical phase in the PU (p<0.05), whereas similar results were not seen in the FU (p>0.05).
Conclusion: Since differences were observed in psychological resilience according to gender, clinical education, and university profile, mentoring programs regarding these factors should be developed to empower dental students.