psychological resilience ; Dental environmental stress ; dental students ; Yonsei University College of Dentistry
Abstract
Purpose: Resilience is an individual’s tendency to cope with stress and adversity. The purpose of this study was to
evaluate the resilience and the degree of stress perceived by dental students and to find out the relationship between
resilience and the degree of stress.
Methods: The Korean Resilience Questionnaire (KRQ) was used to compare the resilience between 100 dental
school students and 420 non-dental students of Yonsei University. In addition, Dental Environmental Stress (DES)
questionnaire was used to measure the level of stress among dental students. The relationship between various factors of
resilience and DES was statistically evaluated.
Results: Dental students indicated significantly lower scores for ‘communication ability’ and ‘expansion of self’, but
higher scores for ‘life satisfaction’ compared to the non-dental students (p<0.05). However, the overall resilience score
was similar between the two groups. Higher scores for ‘life satisfaction’ and “empathy” and lower scores for ‘expansion
of self’ and ‘self-optimism’ were associated with higher level of dental environmental stress among dental students.
Conclusion: Certain differences in individual resilience were highly associated with the level of environmental stress
among dental students. Precise evaluation of resilience and reinforcement of resilience through various educational programs
may help to decrease the level of stress.