Assessment of dental anxiety and its correlation with denture satisfaction in edentulous patients.

OBJECTIVE The objectives of this study were to measure the level of dental anxiety and its correlation with dental history, denture satisfaction and other variables. MATERIALS AND METHODS A cross-sectional study was conducted on 150 completely edentulous patients reporting to the Department of Prosthodontics, KLES's Institute of Dental Sciences, Belgaum, over a period of 17 months (August 2005 to March 2007). The anxiety level of the patients was assessed with the help of a questionnaire, after obtaining an informed consent. Reliability of the dental anxiety scale was assessed by means of coefficient alpha. RESULTS The results of this study concluded that dental anxiety scale for edentulous patients was a reliable scale for measuring dental anxiety. The anxiety score was higher for female than male patients. A significant correlation was found between denture satisfaction score and anxiety. DISCUSSION Anxiety plays a major role in denture satisfaction. The variables included: Previous denture experience, occupation, medical history, age, gender, dental anxiety scale, period of edentulousness, age of previous dentures, number of complete dentures, denture satisfaction score, and the score on the Hamilton anxiety scale. CONCLUSION The study indicated that gender correlates significantly with dental anxiety. Patients with medical history were found to be more anxious than normal patients. Patients with higher anxiety values were less satisfied with the treatment. Lastly, subjects with higher general anxiety showed greater values on the dental anxiety scale. CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE The assessment of dental anxiety will help the prosthodontist in the management of anxious patients and secondly to provide evidence-based research into this psychological construct which has been shown to predict dental avoidance.