Vital Signs and Salivary Cortisol as Biomarkers of Stress among Senior Dental Trainees at a Dentistry Faculty Hospital

Yıl 2025, Cilt: 8 Sayı: 6, 250 - 254, 15.11.2025

Gözde Işıker Kara , Hatice Balci Yuce , Sibel Acel , Tolgahan Kara

https://doi.org/10.19127/bshealthscience.1734070

Öz

Senior dental trainees tend to experience increased stress since they have to deal with graduation and career concerns, on top of the challenges of their clinical duties. Increased stress can cause stress-related physiological changes. This study aimed to investigate perceived stress, systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP), heart rate (HR), blood oxygen saturation (OS), and salivary cortisol levels (SCL) among senior dental trainees of Tokat Gaziosmanpaşa University Dental Hospital. This cross-sectional study was conducted on 73 systemically healthy senior dental trainees of Tokat Gaziosmanpaşa University Dental Hospital in June 2023. Perceived stress scores (PSS) were obtained via the Perceived Stress Scale-14. SBP, DBP, HR, and OS measurements were performed. An enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was used to evaluate SCL. No statistically significant correlation was found between PSS and SBP, DBP, HR, OS, and SCL (P>0.05). In addition, there was no statistically significant difference in terms of all variables among the clinical sections (P>0.05). The stress levels of healthy dentistry senior trainees did not cause a significant change in stress biomarkers such as SBP, DBP, HR, OS, and SCL. Dental trainees performing different clinical tasks did not show a significant difference in terms of PSS, SBP, DBP, HR, OS, and SCL.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Dentistry students , Perceived stress , Blood pressure , Heart rate , Oxygen saturation , Salivary cortisol

Etik Beyan

The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. Before starting the study, ethical approval was obtained from Tokat Gaziosmanpaşa University Clinical Research Ethics Committee (Aproval date: March 15, 2023, prodocol code: 23-KAEK-126).

Kaynakça

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