The prevalence of dental anxiety in a group of 13- and 14-year-old Scottish children

Abstract

The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of dental anxiety reported by a group of 13- and 14-year-old children, and to explore the relationships between dental anxiety and general fear, social class, gender, size of family, length of time since the last dental appointment, and the number of people known by the child to be afraid of visiting the dentist. A group of 1103 children from eight schools took part in the study, which was completed in 1989. The children (mean age 14.0 years, SD 0.35) completed a structured questionnaire containing the Corah Dental Anxiety Scale (CDAS) and the Geer Fear Scale (GFS). The prevalence of high dental anxiety (CDAS greater than = 15) was 7.1%. High dental anxiety was associated with gender (girls having higher levels of anxiety than boys) and with social class as defined by father's occupation (lower social class groups having higher dental anxiety). Injection was the dental procedure most highly correlated with CDAS in children with a high dental anxiety, closely followed by 'drilling' and 'tooth scaling'. A high level of general fear (GFS) was associated with a high level of dental anxiety. Despite this, 64% of those with high dental anxiety had a low general fear. Two factors were useful predictors of high dental anxiety: the length of time since the last visit to the dentist and the number of people known by the child to be afraid of going to the dentist.