Dental Anxiety among Patients Visiting a Dental College in Multan: A Hospital-based Cross-Sectional Study

Objective: To evaluate the correlation between dental anxiety and different demographic factors and to determine level of dental anxiety using Modified Dental Anxiety Scale. Study Design: Cross-sectional study. Place and Duration of Study: Combined Military Hospital, Multan Institute of Medical Sciences Dental College, Multan Pakistan, from Sep to Dec 2022. Methodology: We evaluated the level of dental anxiety using the Modified Dental Anxiety Scale questionnaire. We enrolled a sample size of 290 individuals from Outpatient Department using a non-probability convenience sampling technique after obtaining relevant permission from the Ethics Review Board of our institution. Results: We found dental anxiety to be influenced by a variety of demographic factors, including gender, age, education and prior dental experiences. As per Modified Dental Anxiety Scale scoring, 112(38.6%) individuals had low levels of anxiety, 103(35.5%) had moderate levels of anxiety while 75(25.86%) had high levels of dental anxiety. The overall Modified Dental Anxiety Scale score was 1.87. Anxiety was most frequent among young patients with males found to have higher dental anxiety than females (p <0.0001). Among the many dental treatment methods, local anesthetic injections were discovered to be associated with the highest level of anxiety. No significant association was found between education and previous dental experience. Conclusion: Dental anxiety was influenced by multiple demographic factors, including gender, age, education and prior dental experiences.