Introduction: Dental Students are requested to acquire various academic competencies and accomplish multiple clinical and interpersonal skills. This usually places them in stressful situations that might need different coping strategies to decrease their level of stress and anxiety.
Objectives: The aim of this study was to identify the perceived sources of stress among clinical and preclinical undergraduate dental students, in Alexandria and Pharos universities. Furthermore, students' adopted coping strategies were also investigated.
Materials and methods: A cross-sectional, analytical study, using a specially designed questionnaire, was adopted. A minimal sample size of 309 students was determined from both universities. Therefore, all students who were available at the time of the survey, in the third preclinical and fifth clinical undergraduate years, in both faculties of dentistry, in Alexandria University and Pharos University, were approached (375 students) and only 358 returned the filled questionnaire sheets, giving a response rate of nearly 95%.
Results: Among all domains of stress included in the questionnaire, workload had a mean score of 19.52 ± 3.46 and 16.83 ± 4.31 among Alexandria and Pharos university students, respectively, representing the highest sources of stress. Moreover, the mostly adopted coping mechanisms by students were comfort in religion or spiritual beliefs (88.3%) and praying or meditating (88%), respectively.
Conclusion: Students of both faculties, whether private or public, suffered from different sources of stress, especially those relating to workload as well as faculty and administration, indicating a need to reduce these stressors and to encourage constructive coping mechanisms.