Dental Fear

Abstract

Objectives: Anxiety towards dental procedures is common problem thatmay be experienced by dental patients all over the world. This study focused on evaluatingthe prevalence of dental anxiety and its relationship with age, gender, religion, residence,previous traumatic experience and family history in patients coming to dental department ofLahore General Hospital, Pakistan. Study Design: Cross-sectional study. Setting: Departmentof Dentistry of Lahore General Hospital, Pakistan. Period: 1st Jan 2017 to 29th Feb 2017.Material and Methods: A total of 110 patients, aged 10- 85 years were selected for the study.A questionnaire comprising the Modified Dental Anxiety Scale (MDAS) and Dental ConcernAssessment was used to measure the level of dental anxiety and concern towards dentalprocedure was used. Data was analyzed using SPSS version 20. Results: The mean anxietyscore of the 110 patients was 10.43 (SD=5.4). The prevalence of dental anxiety among thestudy population was 37.9%. Based on severity of dental anxiety, 13.6% and 24.3% werefound to be moderately and highly anxious, respectively. Independent sample t-test showedmales were “slightly anxious” than females on items of MDAS such as use of drill and injection.Correlational analyses show significant positive relationship between residence, family history,dental concern and dental anxiety. Linear regression revealed that residence (rural) emergedas significant predictor of MDAS in patients with dental anxiety (P>0.05) accounting for 76%of variance. Conclusion: Female patients, patients belonging to rural areas and family historywere associated with increased MDAS score.