International Journal of Collaborative Research on Internal Medicine & Public Health

Factors affecting dental anxiety and beliefs in an Iranian population

Introduction: The dentists feel influenced in taking care of patients, showing fear, anxiety, and avoidance in the dental situation.

Objective: The aim of this study was to decide current prevalence of dental anxiety and fear in a population of high school students in Qazvin, Iran

Method: The study group comprise of seven hundred and eighty randomly selected high school students participate in this research. There were 315 (40.38%) boys and 465 (59.62%) girls of the ages between 15 and 16 years. The questions were formulated to evaluate information without the need for dental examination. The data were obtained from the epidemiological study to assess anxiety and fear, with the questionnaire were used. We distributed questionnaires of, Dental Anxiety Scale (DAS), Dental Fear Survey (DFS).

Result: According to the results, dental anxiety and fear were found to be noticeably higher in the study group. 29% were found High anxiety and also in 21.8% of students had high fear in 30.4% of the study subjects, in that order the highest anxiety and fear levels were found in adolescents who had an extraction at their last visit. Those adultcent who had visited the dentist recently found to have higher fear and anxiety levels, while lower fear and anxiety levels were associated with adolescents who had never been to the dentist. The lowest fear and anxiety levels were oral prophylaxes.

Conclusion: According to our finding it may conclude that anxiety and fear are high among the students with previous traumatic dental exposure

Author(s): Jalaleddin Hamissi, Hesameddin Hamissi, Adeleh Ghoudosi, Shahrzad Gholami

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