Socio-Demographic and Professional Practice Differences Associated to Perceived Stress among Monterrey Collegiate Dentists

For a professional practice of quality is important that levels of stress are not very high, because the professional can incur diagnostic and intervention errors and affect their health and quality of life. Therefore assessing the level of stress and its risk and protector factors takes great relevance. The aims of this paper were: (1) to describe the levels of perceived stress and (2) to study the relationship between socio-demographic, professional practice and family interaction variables and perceived stress among collegiate dentists from Monterrey. Questions about socio-demographic information, professional practice, family interaction and the 14-item perceived stress scale (PSS-14) were applied to a random sample of 140 collegiate dentists. About 8 out of 100 dentists reported to suffer high levels of perceived stress. Younger dentists perceived more stress. Working in private practice and having dental assistant were associated to lower level of perceived stress. It is concluded that the level of perceived stress in the collegiate dentists from Monterrey is low compared to other populations. It is suggested working quality aspects of job performance in stress management workshops for dentists.