Abstract
Dental anxiety is defined as fear of dental treatment or of a certain aspect of dental treat-ment. It has been an important subject in behavioral dentistry. There have been many studiesabout dental fear and anxiety in several industrial countries, but there has been no empiricalstudy about dental anxiety among older adults in Japan.
The purpose of this study was to estimate levels of dental anxiety and find out its relation-ship to dental status and sociodemographic variables among Japanese older adults. Corah'sDental Anxiety Scale (DAS) was used to measure levels of dental anxiety. To our knowledge, this is the first study to use the Dental Anxiety Scale to measure dental anxiety among olderadults in Japan. A total of 293 patients aged 40 years and over who visited the ProsthodonticClinic of Showa University Dental Hospital were selected as subjects. One dentist interviewedthe subjects to investigate their dental anxiety before the dental examination. Their educational level and marital status are also examined. The subjects were first classified as dentate and edentulous groups. The dentate group was further subdivided into those who had partially edentulous areas and those who had no edentulous areas. Results are presented separately for two older cohorts, respondents ages 40-64 and those 65 and older. No significant correlation was found between dental anxiety and educational level. But Age and dental status wer significantly correlated with dental anxiety. Older subjects had lower dental anxiety than younger subjects. The edentulous group had lower dental anxiety than the dentate group. Among the dentate group those who had partially edentulous areas had higher dental anxiety than those who had no edentulous areas.
The most striking finding from this study was that sex was significantly correlated with dental anxiety among those who did not have spouses.
Males who did not have a spouse had significantly higher dental anxiety than females whodid not have a spouse.
