Introduction: Dental anxiety, fear, and phobia are common factors that prevent individuals from seeking dental care by delaying dental care or terminating the visit entirely, which may cause a decline in oral health-related quality of life. Dental anxiety often has a correlation with other psychological constructs. There is a significant prevalence of dental anxiety among various ethnic groups, which highlights the importance of understanding and addressing these issues to improve oral health outcomes and access to care.Aim: To examine the associations between psychological constructs, dental anxiety, and phobia, as well as the associations between key demographics and dental anxiety and phobia among patients seeking dental care at TUKSoD.
Methods: Baseline data from 499 patients who participated in a randomized clinical trial that evaluated the efficacy of an online intervention in managing dental anxiety (National Institute of Health U01DE027328) was used. Subjects completed a semi-structured interview according to the Diagnostic Schedule Manual-IV (DSM-IV) criteria and self-reported measures on dental anxiety (Modified Dental Anxiety Scale (MDAS)), fear or avoidance of dental care, sensitivity to pain (PSI), ability to tolerate distress (DTS), blood-injection-injury (BII) phobia, and other psychological factors. Bivariate analysis was done using paired sample t-tests and analysis of variance to evaluate differences in mean scores for MDAS by sex, race, gender, and ethnicity. Multivariable Regression Models were used to explore the association between MDAS, selected demographic variables and psychological constructs while controlling for potential confounders, likewise for clinical severity rating (CSR). These analyses were performed using R 4.3.2 and statistical significance was set at two-sided p-value < 0.05.
Results: Mean age of subjects was 48.9±14.7 years old, most were female (71.6%), non-Hispanic (88.6%) with an income lower than $30,000 (40.0%) and most had completed a high school diploma /GED (26%). The majority (63.3%) reported high dental anxiety (MDAS≥19) and 64.57 % met criteria for specific phobia (CSR≥4), with mean scores of 19.53 ± 3.62 and 4.49 ± 1.69 respectively. Mean scores for FQBII, PSI, DTS, and ASI were 15.51 ± 10.15, 68.02±22.9, 44.73±13.2, and 31.0 ± 16.87 respectively. Significant differences in Clinical Severity Rating were observed by age (p< 0.01), sex (p = 0.02), and race (p<0.01), while the psychological constructs FQBII, DTS and PSI varied significantly across age, race, and ethnicity (p<0.05). The Hispanic group had clinical severity ratings that were approximately 10.1% higher than the non-Hispanic group. This was not statistically significant (p=0.07).
Conclusion: Dental anxiety scores were higher among African American low-income women compared to Caucasians. Age, sex, income, and race demonstrated to have a strong association with Dental anxiety. Having high pain sensitivity and fear of blood/injections seem to increase dental anxiety.
Key words: Dental anxiety, Dental phobia / Oral Biology
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TEMPLE/oai:scholarshare.temple.edu:20.500.12613/10239 |
| Date | 05 1900 |
| Creators | Okoye, Ifeanyi David, 0009-0003-0231-9154 |
| Contributors | Tellez Merchán, Marisol, Dunne, Eugene M., Lim, Sungwoo |
| Publisher | Temple University. Libraries |
| Source Sets | Temple University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation, Text |
| Format | 72 pages |
| Rights | IN COPYRIGHT- This Rights Statement can be used for an Item that is in copyright. Using this statement implies that the organization making this Item available has determined that the Item is in copyright and either is the rights-holder, has obtained permission from the rights-holder(s) to make their Work(s) available, or makes the Item available under an exception or limitation to copyright (including Fair Use) that entitles it to make the Item available., http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
| Relation | http://dx.doi.org/10.34944/dspace/10201, Theses and Dissertations |
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