Objective: The purpose of this study was to identify which categories of chronic stress increase during medical and dental education.
Methods: 96 dental and 140 medical students were included. Chronic stress was assessed before the beginning of an undergraduate course and after the end of the same course. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test for matched pairs was used to find differences between the pre-course and post-course situation. Differences between dental and medical students were assessed using non-parametric tests.
Results: For both medical and dental students stress value of the variables 'work overload' and 'overextended at work' increased significantly after the course. For dental students the variables 'social overload', 'performance pressure at work', 'lack of social recognition' and 'worry propensity' increased, too. For medical students the variable 'social isolation' increased, additionally.
Conclusions: In both medical and dental educational courses some subcategories of chronic stress increased. However, this increase is more pronounced in dental education.