The Relationship Between Dental Fear and Sociodemographic Variables

Purpose: The aim of the study was to investigate the effects of age, gender and educational level on the dental anxiety of patients admitted to the Department of Restorative Dentistry and Endodontics at Erciyes Universitys Faculty of Dentistry. Patients and Methods: In the study, 324 patients were asked to complete a questionnaire. The survey consisted of two sections. The first section requested participants sociodemographic information such as including age, gender and educational level. The second section consisted of the Modified Dental Anxiety Scale (MDAS). Results: No correlation was found between age and MDAS (r= -0.011, p=0.844). Females tend to be more anxious than males (p 0.001). The results showed that educational level had no significant effect on dental anxiety (p=0.837). Conclusions: In this study, it was observed that dental anxiety was not affected by age or education level, and that the dental anxiety levels of females were higher than males.