Abstrakt

Measurement of dental anxiety among young adolescents.

Gopika G.G*, D.Sri Sakthi

Background: Fear of pain is a very common reason for avoiding the dentist. This fear usually comes from birth trauma and mostly from childhood experience. Hence it is important to understand the dental anxiety level of a patient who walks inside to the clinic to treat them comprehensively. Methodology: A total of 101 young adolescents visiting private dental hospitals participated in the study. A self-administered,10 item questionnaire was circulated among the patients. Only completely filled forms were taken in analysis. Results: Final analysis was done using responses from 101 study participants. Dental anxiety was found to be high. On the contrary, knowledge regarding preventing measures was only fair. Majority of the participants avoided dental treatment due to fear of pain (68.32%).The research suggested dental anxiety scales are valid measurement instruments for dental anxiety patients undergoing any painful procedure like filling (52.5%). Conclusion: This study throws a light on baseline knowledge regarding dental anxiety and its measurement, their attitude towards dental anxiety was very good. In order to transform the beliefs regarding dental anxiety into a fear, evidence based trials must be carried out.