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Prevalence and characteristics of dental anxiety in Danish adults
Author(s) -
Moore Rod,
Birn Herluf,
Kirkegaard Eigil,
Brødsgaard Inger,
Scheutz Flemming
Publication year - 1993
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.1600-0528.1993.tb00777.x
Subject(s) - anxiety , medicine , dental fear , danish , logistic regression , clinical psychology , odds ratio , psychiatry , dentistry , demography , linguistics , philosophy , sociology
– Prevalence, characteristics and consequences of dental anxiety in a randomly selected sample of 645 Danish adults were explored in telephone interviews. Participation rate was 88%. Demographics, fear of specific procedures, negative dentist contacts, general fear tendency, treatment utilization and perceived oral conditions were explored by level of dental anxiety using a modified Dental Anxiety Scale (DAS). A Seattle fear survey item and a summary item from the Dental Fear Survey (DPS) were also included for fear description comparisons. Correlation between these indices (DAS‐DFS: r s = 0.72; DAS‐Seattle item: r s = 0.68) aided semantic validation of DAS anxiety intensity levels. Extreme dental anxiety (DAS ≥ 15) was found in 4.2% of the sample and 6% reported moderate anxiety (DAS scores 14–12). Bivariate (B) and logistic regression (L) odds ratios (OR) showed that high dental anxiety was associated with gender, education and income, but not with age. Extreme dental anxiety for dentate subjects was characterized by fear of drilling (OR L = 38.7), negative dentist contacts (OR L = 9.3), general fear tendency (OR L = 3.4), avoidance of treatment (OR L = 16.8) and increased oral symptoms (OR B = 4.4). Moderate dental anxiety was also related to drilling (OR L = 22.3), but with less avoidance due to anxiety (OR L = 6.8) compared with low fear subjects.