My first Magazine | Page 49

PREDICTING THE PSYCHOLOGICAL WELL-BEING OF DENTAL STUDENTS DURING THE SEMESTER EVALUATION PERIOD: A PROSPECTIVE STUDY

Table 2. Change of positive well-being over the first academic semester

Well-being change WHO-5 score change( mean)

Clinically significant change of well-being Improvement No change Worsening

Table 3. Student’ s well-being, assessed by MDI scores, over the first semester of the academic year Time Students MDI score( mean) p

T1

T2

T3

T4

All( T1: T2): 0.004 * All( T2: T3): 0.637 All( T3: T4): 0.261 All( T1: T4): < 0.001 * Male: Female( T1): 0.194 Male: Female( T2): 0.082 Male: Female( T3): 0.681 Male: Female( T4): 0.174 From Bucharest: Other( T1): 0.229 From Bucharest: Other( T2): 0.710 From Bucharest: Other( T3): 0.799 From Bucharest: Other( T4): 0.810 in well-being, was recorded on an ordinal scale( improvement; no change; worsening). Regression analysis was performed in order to assess if wellbeing during the teaching period( in T1, T2, T3) predicts well-being during examination period( in T4). SPSS Statistics was used to perform the statistical analysis. Significance was set at p < 0.05( significance level 95 %) for all statistical tests. p-value less than 0.05 as marked by“*”.

3. Results

The selected series included ninety-two dental students, out of which eighty-five met the eligibility criteria and all agreed to participate in this research. Seventy of them( response rate of 82 %) filled the questionnaires all four times. Most of them were females( n = 49; 70 %), twenty years old( n = 57; 81 %). Fifteen( 21 %) students were from Bucharest. The students’ well-being during the first academic semester. The students’ well-being exhibited changes during the first academic semester, in terms of subjective positive psychological wellbeing, assessed by WHO-5 score, but also as the severity of depression symptoms, assessed by the MDI score. Observing the WHO-5 scores, a statistically significant reduction of well-being was noticed during the first half of the semester( at T2 compared to T1), followed by a not statistically significant increase of it after a twoweek holiday( at T3 compared to T2). In the winter exam period( at T4), as expected, a statistically significant reduction in the students’ well-being was observed, which reached its lowest level. A subgroup analysis showed that male students and Bucharest natives registered higher WHO-5 scores during the written exam period( at T2 and T4), which means better well-being, at a level that was not statistically significant( Table 1). Considering the difference of WHO-5score out of 10, assessed as a clinically significant change in positive wellbeing, at almost all moments in time frequent changes in the positive well-being were noticed, with either improvement or worsening. Only ten students did not show a clinically significant change in the positive well-being when assessed at two consecutive times, across the entire semester. About 40 % of the students registered a clinically significant worsening of their positive well-being during the written exam period( at T2 compared to T1; at T4 compared to T3). Over the entire first semester( T4 compared to T1) almost half of the students registered a clinically significant worsening of their positive well-being( Table 2). With respect to the MDI scores, a statistically significant reduction of well-being was noticed during the first half of the semester teaching period( at T2 compared to T1), that continued afterwards, at a level that was not statistically significant. A subgroup analysis showed that during the written exam period female students( T2 and T4) had a tendency of registering higher MDI scores, meaning higher severity of depression symptoms( Table 3). Classifying students according to the MDI score obtained, there were 6 students in T1, 8 students in T2, 13 students in T3 and 17 students in T4 with MDI scores ≥ 20, regarded as having depression. Consequently, the ratio between mild to moderate to severe depression was the following: 2:3:1 in T1; 3:3:2 in T2; 7:2:4 in T3; 7:5:5 in T4. Prediction of subjective well-