Assessment of stress burden among dental students: A systematic literature review and meta-analysis of data.

BACKGROUND: The education of dentists is associated with high levels of stress among students. This phenomenon is observed in many countries. OBJECTIVES: The aim of the study was to sum up the knowledge about stress burden among dental students and to determine the causal factors on the basis of a quantitative systematic review of the literature. MATERIAL AND METHODS: The PubMed/MEDLINE and Cochrane Library databases were reviewed, and the literature was manually searched for the following keywords: 'stress'; 'dental student'; 'dental education'; and 'DES questionnaire'. The inclusion criteria for the systematic literature review were original papers and literature reviews, published after 1990, written in English, containing the analysis of the DES questionnaires, and on the topic of stress among students of dentistry. The inclusion criteria for the meta-analysis were publications with the same thematic structure of the DES questionnaire and with the number of survey participants provided. RESULTS: A total of 36 original papers were found, out of which 29 met the inclusion criteria, and thus were included into the systematic literature review analysis. Taking all the papers into consideration, the highest level of stress was caused by grades and examinations, and the atmosphere created by clinical professors. Nearly half of the studies demonstrated higher levels of stress in women. Also, students of higher years were characterized by higher stress indicators. The statistical analysis comprised data from 11 European universities that met the inclusion criteria. The highest mean scores were obtained for 'performance pressure', while the lowest mean scores for 'relationship with sex/race'. CONCLUSION: There was a great heterogeneity among the pooled estimates, which could be attributed to the varying levels of stress among dental students. The students' ethnicity and cultural indicators have a decisive influence on the stress levels of dental students, not the characteristics of the field of study.

Stress associated with undergraduate medical courses: A translation and validation of the Perceived Medical School Stress Instrument into Polish and its adaptation to the Polish environment.

OBJECTIVES: Medical students are more susceptible to depression than other students. Moreover, students with the symptoms of depression statistically more often abuse drugs and have suicidal thoughts and anxiety. The level of stress and the factors that lead to in among medical students at Polish universities have not yet been measured. The aim of this study was to translate to Polish and validate the Perceived Medical School Stress Instrument (PMSS-PL) and to measure the resulting version's psychometric abilities. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We validated the Polish translation of PMSS in accordance with the recommendations published by the Translation and Cultural Adaptation group of the Quality of Life Special Interest group of the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research. The Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10) was used as an external test to validate the PMSS-PL questionnaire. A total of 430 undergraduate medical students at the Medical College of Jagiellonian University took part. RESULTS: The mean PMSS-PL score was 36.43 and it varied from 13 to 65. The mean PSS-10 was 21.35. The internal reliability, as indicated by Cronbach's alpha, was 0.803, which means there was internal reliability between PSS-10 and PMSS-PL. Moreover, all questions from PMSS-PL had a positive discrimination power, so each question correlated positively with the other questions in PMSS-PL. CONCLUSIONS: PMSS-PL may be used to psychometrically analyze the stress load on undergraduate medical students at Polish universities. The PMSS-PL may also be used as an external test for validating and calculating the reliability and accuracy of other psychometric instruments.

Foundations of fluoride prophylaxis in Poland and the prosthetic rehabilitation of the masticatory organ in arthropathies and malocclusion: Scientific achievements of Professor Noemi Wigdorowicz-Makowerowa.

Professor Noemi Wigdorowicz-Makowerowa was born in Warsaw to a Polish Jewish family on November 24, 1912. She graduated from the Medical University of Warsaw in 1937 and from the Academy of Dentistry in 1939. In early 1940, she was forcibly relocated to the Warsaw Ghetto, from which she escaped in January 1943. Shortly after the Second World War, in 1946, she started working at Wroclaw University. She conducted multiple studies there on the fluoride prophylaxis of caries, and on temporomandibular joint arthropathy and its etiology. She proved the efficiency of tap water fluoridation in caries prevention through a comparative study on children from schools in Wroclaw and Malbork, where the fluoride concentrations were 0.1 mg/L and 3.2 mg/L, respectively. The incidence of deep caries and the rate of tooth mortality were significantly lower in Malbork. Her long-term studies on the fluoride prophylaxis of caries prompted Professor Wigdorowicz-Makowerowa to found the Scientific and Technical Team for Fluoride Prophylaxis, based at the Department of Dental Prosthetics in the Institute of Dentistry of Wroclaw Medical University, which led to the creation of 35 fluoride water treatment plants in Poland by 1980. Moreover, she emphasized that malocclusion caused by dental caries and tooth loss, bruxism, higher susceptibility to stress, and increased muscle tone may constitute reasons for masticatory organ disorders. In her long career of over 30 years, she published 68 articles about fluorine and its use in dentistry, and 50 articles about temporomandibular joint arthropathy and other masticatory organ disorders.