Discussion
The objectives of this study were to identify the perceived sources of stress among Indian dental students and the role of their parents in the etiology of stress. It was seen that the stress related to clinical items was generally more for the fourth-year students than that of the third years, except for working on patients with dirty mouths where the third years showed higher stress levels. However, there was no significant difference found between classes for any of these items. This increase in stress levels in the fourth year may be because the students were re- quired to complete certain quotas in terms of patients treated in order to be eligible to appear for the final exams. Working on patients with dirty mouths may be more stressful for the third years because clinical training involving real patients starts in that year. This was in disagreement with previous studies,3,5,11 in which items linked to clinical training tended to in- duce less stress in final-year students. Variations in the curriculum between schools may explain this difference.