Dental environment and war-related stress among dental students, Yemen.

BACKGROUND: Education related to health sciences appears to be the most stressful. AIMS: The aim of this study was to evaluate the perceived stress among Yemeni dental students and to explore the effect of the war circumstances on the perceived stress. METHODS: This cross-sectional study targeted all dental students at the two main dental faculties in Yemen. Dental environmental stress questionnaire was used. An extra 12 items (as one domain) were developed to reflect the stress resulting from the current war circumstances. RESULTS: A total of 1051 dental students participated in this study. The overall dental environmental stress was 1.63±0.45. The most significant stressor domain was "workload", followed by "war-related" along with "performance pressure". In general, females, married, and clinical students, and those with lower GPA scored significantly higher stress levels than their counterparts. Regression analysis revealed that the university, sex, and study level as the most significant determinants for most domains. CONCLUSIONS: The level of stress among Yemeni dental students can be considered as moderate to high. This stress was further exacerbated by the war circumstances present.

Tongue lesions and anomalies in a sample of Yemeni dental patients: a cross-sectional study

Background: Tongue examination helps considerably in diagnosing the underlying health state of the patient, especially in the cases of chronic diseases. The aim of this study is to determine the prevalence and association of tongue lesions with risk factors among Yemeni dental patients. Materials and methods: An oral medicine specialist examined all 713 patients attending the dental polyclinics at the University of Sciences and Technology (Sana’a, Yemen). The examination sheet was designed to include information related to patient characteristics, medical history, dental history, habits, and tongue lesions. Results: The prevalence of tongue lesions among the examined participants was 76.5 percent. The prevalence rate was 83.4 percent for males and 69.2 percent for females. Fissured tongue was the most common condition. Logistic regression analysis indicated that older age (p<0.001), gender (p=0.007), khat chewing (p<0.001), and smoking (p=0.001) were associated with fissured tongue; gender (p<0.001), khat chewing (p<0.001), and smoking (p<0.001) were associated with hairy tongue; and older age (p<0.001), khat chewing (p=0.001), and smoking (p=.021) were associated with coated tongue. Conclusion: The prevalence of tongue lesions among this sample of Yemeni population was 76.5 percent; fissured tongue and hairy tongue were the most prevalent lesions. Khat chewing, smoking, and older age were the associated risk factors for many of studied lesions and anomalies.