Premium
Dental fear and pain: effect on patient's perception of the dentist
Author(s) -
Kunzelmann KarlHeinz,
Dünninger Peter
Publication year - 1990
Publication title -
community dentistry and oral epidemiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.061
H-Index - 101
eISSN - 1600-0528
pISSN - 0301-5661
DOI - 10.1111/j.1600-0528.1990.tb00073.x
Subject(s) - medicine , dental fear , anxiety , dentistry , context (archaeology) , german , epidemiology , psychiatry , paleontology , archaeology , biology , history
A questionnaire was developed including the Dental Anxiety Scale (DAS) and the Dental Beliefs Survey (DBS) as subscales to examine the epidemiology of dental fear and dental beliefs in Germany. The survey was administered before treatment to a sample of 474 dental patients. Of the respondents 56% were female. The mean age was 34.3 yr (SD 12.4 yr). The mean DAS score was 8.6 (SD 3.7). Mean DBS score ranged from 1.73 to 2.75 for single items. The correlation between DAS and DBS scores was highly significant (r s = 0.39, P < 0.001). Absence or presence of dental pain revealed significant differences for DAS and DBS scores ( P < 0.001). Both tests are valid screening forms for the German linguistic context and easy to implement in daily dental routine.