Abstract
The purpose of the present study was to standardize the criterion of dental fear in young Japanese adults and to clarify the relationship between patient's impression of dental treatment and amount of the dental fear. The subjects of this study were 231 Liberal Arts students of Niigata University (117males and 114 females).
The mean age of the subjects was 19.5 years. The Dental Fear Survey (DFS)was translated into Japanese and then distributed to the subjects. The mean total score of the DFS was 45.15. The score agreed with the DFS scores in other countries of previous studies. The mean total scores of the females and males were 46.24 and 44.09 respectively. The score of the females was higher than that of the males, and this finding was also shown in the previous studies. In Item 18 (fear of dental drilling), there was a significant difference between the mean scores of the males and females (p<0.05). The results suggested that the DFS of the Japanese version would be a self-report measurement of the dental fear in adolescents and young adults for screening.
The impressions of the subjects toward dental treatment were categorized into three types; positive, negative and neutral impression. The mean total scores of subjects with positive impression (17subjects), with negative impression (114 subjects) and with neutral impression (100 subjects) were 33.9,54.6 and 36.3 respectively. The score with negative impression was significantly higher than those of the others (p<0.01).
As the results of factor analysis,20 items of the DFS were clearly categorized into four factors; fear of proximate dental treatment, fear of actual dental treatment, felt physiological responses and avoidance of dentistry. This finding indicated that the dental fears in the subjects were comprised of the four factors of fear. These four factors of dental fear will enable us to distinguish the characteristics of dental fear of patients clinically.
