Prevalence of dental anxiety among patients attending a dental educational institution in Chennai, India--a questionnaire based study.

OBJECTIVES Anxiety and fear towards dental treatment are common problems frequently experienced by patients worldwide, hence for better understanding, management and development of treatment strategies for dentally anxious patients, the present study was undertaken. The study aimed to evaluate the prevalence of dental anxiety and the factors influencing dental anxiety among the patients attending the outpatient department of a dental institution in India. METHOD 468 patients, 18-70 years were selected for the study. The assessment tools consisted of a consent form, history form, and a questionnaire form containing the Modified Dental Anxiety Scale which was used to assess the level of dental anxiety. RESULTS Cronbach alpha for test retest samples was 0.863.The mean total anxiety score of the 468 samples was 10.29 (SD = 3.767). 3% were dentally phobic. One way ANOVA showed a significant difference between the age groups in relation to their mean total anxiety score (p<0.05) and it decreased with increasing age. Independent t test showed a highly significant difference in the mean total score between the patients with good and bad previous dental experience (p<0.05). Postponement of dental visit showed a significant positive correlation with anxiety score (p<0.001). CONCLUSION Tooth drilling for restorative purposes and local anaesthetic injections, were the most common reasons for dental anxiety. Younger respondents, uneducated, unemployed and lower income group were more anxious. The study also showed that postponement of dental visit and past negative dental experience were associated with higher anxiety scores.