Journal of Dental Research, Vol 66, 1175-1178, Copyright © 1987 by International & American Associations for Dental Research Online Journals

ARTICLES

Ratings of fears associated with twelve dental situations

M. E. Stouthard and J. Hoogstraten

Ratings of fear aroused by 12 dental situations were obtained by the method of paired comparisons. The dental situations concerned one of four categories: (a) preparations for the dental visit, (b) preparations for dental treatment, (c) comments by the dentist on oral state, and (d) actual dental treatment. The situations originated from Gale's ranking questionnaire. It was hypothesized that the amount of fear elicited would increase in the order a, b, c, and d. Results indicated that subjects were capable of ranking dental situations according to the amount of anxiety they aroused. Overall ratings show reasonably good agreement with the results of Gale's study. The hypothesis concerning the rank order of the situations was partly confirmed. Two situations deviated strongly from the expected order. The categories (c) and (d) were rated highest in the hierarchy of fear arousal, but their rank order couldn't be established. This finding suggests that dental fear contains a component of physical danger as well as a component of threat to a person's self-esteem.

This article has been cited by other articles:

				Z. Y. Ay, D. Gundogar, S. Buyukozturk, and C. Gadbury-Amyot Dental Hygiene Fear Survey: Reliability and Validity of the Turkish Version J Dent Educ., February 1, 2008; 72(2): 183 - 194. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				G.M. Humphris, K. Milsom, M. Tickle, H. Holbrook, and A. Blinkhorn A new dental anxiety scale for 5-year-old children (DA5): Description and concurrent validity Health Education Journal, January 1, 2002; 61(1): 5 - 19. [Abstract] [PDF]