Effects of Empathic Ability and Campus Life Stress on Stress Coping Behaviors in Dental Hygiene Students

• Published in: Chiwisaeng gwahakoeji Vol. 17; no. 5; pp. 439 - 446
• Main Authors: Han, Ji-Hyoung, Yang, Jin-Young, Hwang, Ji-Min
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 한국치위생과학회 31.10.2017
• Subjects: 치의학
• ISSN: 1598-4478; 2233-7679; 2233-7679
• DOI: 10.17135/jdhs.2017.17.5.439

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of empathic ability and campus life stress on the stress coping behaviors among 395 dentalhygiene students. The analysis was performed using PASW Statistics ver. 18.0, and the following conclusions were obtained. The empathicconcern factor was the highest in the subscale of empathic ability (3.60). The interpersonal relationship stress was 1.65 and the task-related stresswas 2.72. The stress coping behaviors were the highest among the sub-domains, with 3.69 for wishful thinking. The differences of stress copingbehaviors according to general characteristics were as follows. The lower the age and grade, the higher the problem-focused coping; when theywere religious there was a high pursuit of seeking social support. When they were satisfied with their economic level, wishful thinking was high. Therewas a low negative correlation between empathic concern and interpersonal relationship stress in campus life (p＜0.01). There was a positivecorrelation between personal distress and task-related stress (p＜0.001). The relationship between empathic ability and stress coping behaviorswas most associated with personal distress and wishful thinking. Among the sub-domains of stress coping behaviors, factors that have a commonimpact on personal distress and seeking social support are viewpoint acceptance. Factors supporting emotional focus and wishful thinking weretask-related stress. Dental hygiene students are not able to completely eliminate the stress that they are actually under. However, as the researchresults show, it is necessary to use stress coping techniques to cope effectively with individual tendencies and situations, and to improve the abilityto sympathize with another individual. KCI Citation Count: 0