Background: Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the psychological state of university students has been a cause for concern. In particular, odontology students have experienced symptoms of anxiety due to the closure of universities and the suspension of clinical training.
Methods: Medline via PubMed was searched for studies on the prevalence of anxiety in dental undergraduates, published from 1 December 2019 to 1 August 2021.
Results: A total of fifteen studies were included in this review. Our results show a prevalence of anxiety of 35% reported by dental students, which was independent of gender, response rate or methodological quality. The only significant finding was a lower prevalence of anxiety in studies located in Europe compared to those located in other continents.
Conclusions: The results suggest dental students are experiencing significant levels of anxiety during this COVID-19 pandemic and that there seem to be differences between students from different regions of the world. Therefore, it is important to help dental students psychologically as the pandemic situation continues.
Keywords: COVID-19; anxiety; countries; dental students; gender; meta-analysis.