Ansiedad dental en pacientes ortodóncicos y no ortodóncicos

Abstract

Dental anxiety is a multidimensional complex phenomenon, influenced by personality characteristics, fear of pain, traumatic dental experiences in childhood, and anxious parents or family members. Material and methods: the objective of our study was to analyse the anxiety level of orthodontic patients and compare it with non-orthodontic patients. MDAS (modified dental anxiety tests) were given to 152 orthodontic and 154 non-orthodontic (neither in the present nor in the past) patients in Spain in 2012, both female and male, all adults. Exclusion criteria: syndromes, inability to understand the nature of the study and patients that refused to participate. A Mann-Whitney test was applied to find the statistical association between dental anxiety and orthodontics and Chi square for the association among dental phobia, gender, age and orthodontics. Results: the mean score of our sample was 11,1±4,9. Thirty one patients were considered as dental phobic (10,1%). Eleven patients (7,2%) among those who were undergoing orthodontic treatment and twenty patients (13%) among those who had never undergone orthodontic treatment. These results were not statistically significant, but were close to signification (p=0,10), where there are less phobic patients among those in active orthodontic treatment. Conclusion: no statistical differences in MDAS score were found between the orthodontic and non-orthodontic group, gender or age, although the tendency of increasing phobia with age is slightly significant.