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Correlates of Dental Anxiety Among Older Adults

Department of Community Dentistry, Faculty of Dentistry, University of Toronto, 124 Edward Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5G IG6

A.M. Liddell

Department of Psychology, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada A1B 3X9

This paper reports on a study of dental anxiety among adults aged 50 years and over living independently in two communities in Ontario, Canada. Subjects were identified by means of a telephone survey based on random-digit dialing. Data on dental anxiety were collected from 580 subjects by means of a self-completed questionnaire and were measured by the Dental Anxiety Scale (DAS) (Corah, 1969). The mean DAS score was 7.8, and 8.4% of subjects were classified as dentally anxious. Age was the only demographic factor associated with dental anxiety. Older individuals had lower DAS scores than younger individuals (p<0.0001). There was also a significant association between dental anxiety and general fearfulness measured by the Fear Survey Schedule II (Geer, 1965) (r = 0.31; p<0.001). A series of regression analyses revealed that dental anxiety was a significant predictor of a number of behavioral and oral health outcomes. While these results confirm that dental anxiety is less prevalent among older adults than in younger populations, it has a number of important consequences with respect to dental care provision.

Journal of Dental Research, Vol. 70, No. 3, 198-203 (1991)
DOI: 10.1177/00220345910700030801


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