**5. Conclusions**

It was concluded that the students experienced more stress, followed by the faculty members and dental assistants. In addition, younger participants, females, and senior year students were more stressed than their counterparts. Identifying abnormal stress levels and their timely management and adequate counseling is crucial. It is suggested that in the future, there should be regular checkups of students' stress levels to evaluate their mental health along with the faculty members and assistants. This could help them to overcome their stresses and address their concerns. Our study results contribute to the literature because our findings highlight that not only students could be stressed, but their teaching faculty members and dental assistants could also be at an increased risk of feeling stressed. We recommend developing the skill of managing distress in a sample of students. We also recommend making a distinction between student risk groups who may not have yet acquired enough skill to manage psychological distress and help them in all possible manners.

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, S.A. (Saqib Ali); methodology, S.A. (Saqib Ali), S.T., F.A.F., B.A.-J., H.A.-J., S.A. (Sami Alshehry), A.I.A., and I.F.; software, S.A. (Saqib Ali), S.T., F.A.F., B.A.-J., H.A.-J., S.A. (Sami Alshehry), A.I.A., and I.F.; validation, S.A. (Saqib Ali), S.T., F.A.F., B.A-J., H.A.-J., S.A. (Sami Alshehry), A.I.A., and I.F.; formal analysis, S.A. (Saqib Ali), S.T., F.A.F., B.A.-J., H.A.-J., S.A. (Sami Alshehry), A.I.A., and I.F.; investigation, S.A. (Saqib Ali), S.T., F.A.F., B.A.-J., H.A.-J., S.A. (Sami Alshehry), A.I.A.,and I.F.; resources, S.A. (Saqib Ali), S.T., F.A.F., B.A.-J., H.A.-J., S.A. (Sami Alshehry), A.I.A., and I.F.; data curation, S.A. (Saqib Ali), S.T., F.A.F., B.A.-J., H.A.-J., S.A. (Sami Alshehry), A.I.A., and I.F.; writing—original draft preparation, S.A. (Saqib Ali), S.T., F.A.F., B.A.-J., H.A.-J., S.A. (Sami Alshehry), A.I.A., and I.F.; writing—review and editing, S.A. (Saqib Ali), S.T., F.A.F., B.A.-J., H.A.-J., S.A. (Sami Alshehry), A.I.A., and I.F.; visualization, S.A. (Saqib Ali), S.T., F.A.F., B.A.-J., H.A.-J., S.A. (Sami Alshehry), A.I.A., and I.F.; supervision, B.A.-J., and I.F.; project administration, S.A. (Saqib Ali), S.T., F.A.F., B.A.-J., H.A.-J., S.A. (Sami Alshehry), A.I.A., and I.F. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This research received no external funding.

**Institutional Review Board Statement:** The study was conducted according to the guidelines of the Declaration of Helsinki, and approved by the Institutional Review Board (or Ethics Committee) of College of Dentistry, IAU, Dammam, Saudi Arabia (Ref: EA-202155).

**Informed Consent Statement:** Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study.

**Acknowledgments:** We would like to thank the undergraduate students, interns, dental assistants and faculty at our university who voluntarily agreed to participate in the survey.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.

#### **References**

