Assessment of dental anxiety and fear levels of patients referred to undergraduate and academic staff clinics in Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Department

Abstract

ding to the sociodemographic characteristics, emotional responses and dental experiences,and to evaluate the effect of clinicians’ experience on these parameters. Material and Methods: Patients referred to undergraduate and academic staff clinics of OMFS were questioned with 10 questions regarding demographic information and previous dental experiences,11 questions regarding dental fear, and 5 questions regarding dental anxiety. Compliance with normal distribution was examined by Kolmogorov-Smirnov and Shapiro-Wilk tests.Mann-Whit-ney-U and Kruskal Wallis tests were used to compare dental fear and anxiety scores. Significance level was taken as p<0.05. Results: There was a statistically significant difference in dental fear levels of patients according to type of the clinic, it was higher in undergraduate clinic(p=0.036).When patients were compared in terms of dental fear and anxiety by gender, it was found that both variables were at statistically significantly higher levels in men(p=0.002;p<0.001). Dental fear level was highest in 45-54 age group and lowest in 18-29 age group(p=0.009). Conclusion: While a difference was observed in terms of dental fear according to type of the clinic, no difference was observed in terms of dental anxiety.Males had higher dental anxiety and fear levels. 45-54 age group had the highest dental fear level. It has been concluded that these differences may stem from past dental experience.