The Effect of COVID-19 Pandemic on Psychological Wellness among Dental Students of a Malaysian Public University
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.33102/uij.vol33no3.323Keywords:
anxiety, stress, depression, COVID-19, dental studentsAbstract
COVID-19 pandemic has caused a profound effect on the public mental health around the world. Fear and anxiety of this new disease and uncertainties about the future has led to stress to the society and especially to university students. The objective of this study is to assess depression, anxiety, and stress level experienced by dental students of the Faculty of Dentistry, Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia (USIM) during the first period of Movement Control Order (MCO) by Malaysia government. A Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-21) was distributed online to all USIM’s dental students to assess their psychological impact and mental health status. The questionnaire included demographic characteristics of the respondents. A total of 175 students were involved in this study. Majority of the respondents are female (79.4%), first year dental students (25.7%) and were staying at home with their family (94.9%) in the midst of the outbreak. Overall, the depression, anxiety and stress (DASS-21) scores were normal. However, the proportion of student’s anxiety level was apparently higher than depression and stress. A significant finding showed that students who stayed at home were more anxious than those who stayed at hostel (p=0.035). Pandemic COVID-19 lockdown had impacted the psychological state of the USIM’s dental students mainly on their anxiety level. Mental health among the students should be carefully monitored by the university particularly at the faculty level to prevent further mental breakdown.
Downloads
References
Ahmad, N., Roslan, S., Othman, S., Shukor, S. F. A., & Bakar, A. Y. A. (2018). The Validity and Reliability of Psychometric Profile for Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS21) Instrument among Malaysian Undergraduate Students. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 8(6), 812–827.
Alhajj, M. N., Khader, Y., Murad, A. H., Celebic, A., Halboub, E., Márquez, J. R., Macizo, C. C., Khan, S., Basnet, B. B., Makzoumé, J. E., de Sousa-Neto, M. D., Camargo, R., Prasad, D. A., Faheemuddin, M., Mir, S., Elkholy, S., Abdullah, A. G., Ibrahim, A. A., Al-Anesi, M. S., & Al-Basmi, A. A. (2018). Perceived sources of stress amongst dental students: A multicountry study. European journal of dental education : official journal of the Association for Dental Education in Europe, 22(4), 258–271. https://doi.org/10.1111/eje.12350
Andrew Denovan, Neil Dagnall, Katie Dhingra & Sarah Grogan (2019) Evaluating the Perceived Stress Scale among UK university students: implications for stress measurement and management, Studies in Higher Education, 44:1, 120-133,DOI: 10.1080/03075079.2017.1340445
Araújo, F., de Lima, L., Cidade, P., Nobre, C. B., & Neto, M. (2020). Impact Of Sars-Cov-2 And Its Reverberation In Global Higher Education And Mental Health. Psychiatry research, 288, 112977. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2020.112977
Asif, S., Mudassar, A., Shahzad, T. Z., Raouf, M., & Pervaiz, T. (2020). Frequency of depression, anxiety and stress among university students. Pakistan journal of medical sciences, 36(5), 971–976. https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.36.5.1873
Basudan, S., Binanzan, N., & Alhassan, A. (2017). Depression, anxiety and stress in dental students. International journal of medical education, 8, 179–186. https://doi.org/10.5116/ijme.5910.b961
Elani, H. W., Allison, P. J., Kumar, R. A., Mancini, L., Lambrou, A., & Bedos, C. (2014). A systematic review of stress in dental students. Journal of dental education, 78(2), 226–242.
Ersan, N., Dölekoğlu, S., Fişekçioğlu, E., İlgüy, M., & Oktay, İ. (2018). Perceived sources and levels of stress, general self-efficacy and coping strategies in preclinical dental students. Psychology, health & medicine, 23(5), 567–577. https://doi.org/10.1080/13548506.2017.1384844
Gonçalves, J. P., Lucchetti, G., Menezes, P. R., & Vallada, H. (2015). Religious and spiritual interventions in mental health care: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled clinical trials. Psychological medicine, 45(14), 2937–2949. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291715001166
Gu, J., Zhong, Y., Hao, Y., Zhou, D., Tsui, H., Hao, C., ... & Lau, J. T. F. (2015). Preventive behaviors and mental distress in response to H1N1 among university students in Guangzhou, China. Asia Pac J Public Health, 27 (2), 1867-1879. https://doi.org/10.1177/1010539512443699.
Hattar, S., AlHadidi, A., Sawair, F. A., Abd Alraheam, I., El-Ma’aita, A., & Wahab, F. K. (2021). Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on dental academia. Students’ experience in online education and expectations for a predictable practice. Research Square. https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-54480/v1
Holmes, E. A., O'Connor, R. C., Perry, V. H., Tracey, I., Wessely, S., Arseneault, L., Ballard, C., Christensen, H., Cohen Silver, R., Everall, I., Ford, T., John, A., Kabir, T., King, K., Madan, I., Michie, S., Przybylski, A. K., Shafran, R., Sweeney, A., Worthman, C. M., … Bullmore, E. (2020). Multidisciplinary research priorities for the COVID-19 pandemic: a call for action for mental health science. The lancet. Psychiatry, 7(6), 547–560. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2215-0366(20)30168-1
Jia R, Ayling K, Chalder T, et al.(2020) Mental health in the UK during the COVID-19 pandemic: cross-sectional analyses from a community cohort study. BMJ Open 10:e040620. doi:10.1136/ bmjopen-2020-040620
Joshi, S., Kumari, S., & Jain, M. (2008). Religious belief and its relation to psychological well-being. Journal of the Indian Academy of Applied Psychology, 34(2), 345–354.
Khan, H., ul Momina, A., & Sarwar, M. Z. (2020). Impact Of Psychological Health On Academic Performance Of Medical Students. Where Do We Stand?. Journal Of University Medical & Dental College, 11(3), 31-38. Https://Doi.Org/10.37723/Jumdc.V11i3.425
Kharma, M. Y., Koussa, B., Aldwaik, A., Yaseen, J., Alamari, S., Alras, H., & Almech, M. (2020). Assessment of Anxiety and Stress among Dental Students to Return to Training in Dental College in COVID-19 Era. European journal of dentistry, 14(S 01), S86–S90. https://doi.org/10.1055/s-0040-1717052
Lai, J., Ma, S., Wang, Y., Cai, Z., Hu, J., Wei, N., ... & Hu, S. (2020). Factors associated with mental health outcomes among health care workers exposed to coronavirus disease 2019. JAMA Network Open, 3(3):e203976. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.3976.
Lavoie, J.A.A. & Douglas, K.S. (2012). The Perceived Stress Scale: Evaluating Configural, Metric and Scalar Invariance across Mental Health Status and Gender. J Psychopathol Behav Assess 34, 48–57 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10862-011-9266-1
Lee EH.(2012). Review of the Psychometric Evidence of the Perceived Stress Scale. Asian Nursing Research.
Lovibond, P. F., & Lovibond, S. H. (1995). The structure of negative emotional states: comparison of the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS) with the Beck Depression and Anxiety Inventories. Behaviour research and therapy, 33(3), 335–343. https://doi.org/10.1016/0005-7967(94)00075-u
Musa, R., Fadzil, M. A., & Zain, Z. (2007). Translation, validation and psychometric properties of Bahasa Malaysia version of the Depression Anxiety and Stress Scales (DASS). ASEAN Journal of Psychiatry, 8(2), 82-89
Myers, H. L., & Myers, L. B. (2004). 'It's difficult being a dentist': stress and health in the general dental practitioner. British dental journal, 197(2), 89–101. https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.bdj.4811476
Naidu, R. S., Adams, J. S., Simeon, D., & Persad, S. (2002). Sources of stress and psychological disturbance among dental students in the West Indies. Journal of dental education, 66(9), 1021–1030.
Peng, E. Y. C., Lee, M. B., Tsai, S. T., Yang, C. C., Morisky, D. E., Tsai, L. T., ... & Lyu, S. Y. (2010). Population-based post-crisis psychological distress: an example from the SARS outbreak in Taiwan. Journal of the Formosan Medical Association, 109 (7), 524-532. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0929-6646(10)60087-3
Radeef, A., & Faisal, G. (2018). Stressors and Their Association with Symptoms of Depression, Anxiety and Stress in Dental Students. Makara Journal Of Health Research, 22(2). Retrieved June 5, 2021, from http://journal.ui.ac.id/index.php/health/article/view/9064
Ramírez, M. T., & Hernández, R. L. (2007). Factor structure of the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) in a sample from Mexico. The Spanish journal of psychology, 10(1), 199–206. https://doi.org/10.1017/s1138741600006466
Sahu P. (2020). Closure of Universities Due to Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19): Impact on Education and Mental Health of Students and Academic Staff. Cureus, 12(4), e7541. https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.7541
Saraswathi, I., Saikarthik, J., Senthil Kumar, K., Madhan Srinivasan, K., Ardhanaari, M., & Gunapriya, R. (2020). Impact of COVID-19 outbreak on the mental health status of undergraduate medical students in a COVID-19 treating medical college: a prospective longitudinal study. PeerJ, 8, e10164. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.10164
Tang, A. (2020, March 16). Malaysia announces movement control order after spike in COVID-19 cases (updated) The Star. https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2020/03/16/malaysia-announces-restricted-movement-measure-after-spike-in-covid-19-cases
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) (2020, June 1) https://en.unesco.org/covid19/educationresponse
Wang, C., Pan, R., Wan, X., Tan, Y., Xu, L., Ho, C. S., & Ho, R. C. (2020). Immediate Psychological Responses and Associated Factors during the Initial Stage of the 2019 Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Epidemic among the General Population in China. Int J Environ Res Public Health, 17(5):1729. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17051729
World Health Organization. (2020). Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) Q&A. https://www.who.int/news-room/q-a-detail/q-a-coronaviruses
Worsley R.,Williams R. (2020, April 16). COVID-19 and Mental Wellbeing. IPSOS Mori. https://www. ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/Covid-19-and-mental-wellbeing
Xie, X., Xue, Q., Zhou, Y., Zhu, K., Liu, Q., Zhang, J., & Song, R. (2020). Mental health status among children in home confinement during the coronavirus disease 2019 outbreak in Hubei Province,China. JAMA Pediatr. 174(9), 898-900. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapediatrics.2020.1619
Yang, Y., Li, W., Zhang, Q., Zhang, L., Cheung, T., & Xiang, Y. T. (2020). Mental health services for older adults in China during the COVID-19 outbreak. The Lancet Psychiatry. 9(4) https://doi.org/10.1016/S2215-0366(20)30079-1
Zhai, Y., & Du, X. (2020). Addressing collegiate mental health amid COVID-19 pandemic. Psychiatry research, 288, 113003. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2020.113003
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2021 Ahmad Dzulfikar Samsudin, Azlan Jaafar, Nurul Izza Idaham, Mohamed Hisham Mohamed Jali@Yunos
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
If the article is accepted for publication, the copyright of this article will be vested to author(s) and granted the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, unless otherwise stated. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.
