Psychiatric symptoms in dental students.

Prior research has suggested that dentistry is a relatively stressful occupation that may place its practitioners at an increased mental health risk. Whether or not this susceptibility to mental distress is also evident in those who are being educated to enter the occupation has not been previously studied. The purpose of the present study was to examine the presence of psychiatric symptomatology in a sample of dental students by using the Hopkins Symptom Checklist. Results indicate that dental students evidenced considerably higher symptom levels than those previously reported in a general population survey. Compared with the general population, dental students showed a mild elevation in somatic symptomatology, a moderate elevation in anxiety and depressive symptomatology, and a marked elevation in obsessive-compulsive symptomatology and interpersonal sensitivity. It is possible that the marked elevations in obsessive-compulsive symptomatology and in interpersonal sensitivity may reflect in part a sensitization to excessive performance demands. This sensitization may manifest itself in cognitive inefficiencies such as indecisiveness, blocking or memory impairment, and excess sensitivity to the evaluative judgments of other people. In comparing dental students with other sample groups, dental students were also found to evidence more psychiatric symptomatology than general medical patients judged free of psychiatric illness, and to approach levels of symptomatology found in general medical patients judged psychiatrically ill or in need of psychiatric treatment.