Peer-Reviewed Journal Details
Mandatory Fields
Brady P , Dickinson C, Whelton H
2012
January
SAAD digest
Dental anxiety prevalence and surgery environment factors: A questionnaire-based survey of attenders in Ireland
Published
()
Optional Fields
Dental Anxiety
28
13
22

Aim: To identify and quantify anxious dental patients

and dental office environment factors that may influence

anxiety.

Objective: To develop and implement a questionnaire to

investigate dental anxiety and identify factors that

enhance or lessen dental anxiety in the surgery setting.

Methods: Data was collected from patients by a selfcompleted

questionnaire when attending dentists at a

general dental practice and hospital clinics.

Results:

The estimated prevalence of dental anxiety in the total

sample was 17.0%. A higher proportion of females were

highly anxious. Those attending the Dental Hospital

were less likely to be anxious than those who were

attending the Dental Practice. An inverse relationship

between frequency of dental attendance and dental

anxiety was found. Anxiety was significantly higher for

those respondents that indicated that a delay in their

appointment would make them more anxious. Of the

reported fears regarding their dental visit, 60% of

respondents claimed that they were “afraid it’s going to

hurt”. When compared to non-anxious patients, more

anxious patients feared “feeling out of control”, a

“negative experience”, the needle, the drill, and being

bothered by the smell associated with dental materials.

The majority of respondents had a preference for a

dentist that was young, friendly, talkative and native

English speaking. In general, patients preferred the

surgery temperature to be slightly cool. Regardless of

anxiety level, 31.0% of patients said that they would

prefer the chairside mouth rinse to be plain water with

49.1% not having a preference.

Conclusions:

This study demonstrates that a significant proportion of

patients experience anxiety about visiting the dentist.

Many of them have preferences about dentists and the

surgery environment which may be modulators of their

anxiety. Awareness by the dental profession of the causes

of dental anxiety and measures taken by dentists to

minimise these trigger factors could have a substantial

impact on anxious patients.
Grant Details